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© 2009 Boundless Readers
NEWSLETTER
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New Name, Same Mission: The Rochelle Lee Fund is now Boundless Readers!
NEWSLETTER
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Rochelle Lee Tribute Award
Inaugural Rochelle Lee Tribute Award Honors Linda K. Miner
Founding Board Member
Rochelle Lee Tribute Award
The Rochelle Lee Tribute Award honors individuals who demonstrate the same visionary leadership, creativity, and boundless commitment to developing children into readers as Rochelle Lee, esteemed educator and founder of Boundless Readers.
Linda K. Miner Profile
The Inaugural Rochelle Lee Tribute Award was presented to Linda K. Miner at our March 2009 benefit. Linda has been a supporter of Boundless Readers since the organization’s founding over 20 years ago. Whether it is stepping in at the helm or rolling up her sleeves behind-the-scenes, Linda’s commitment to Boundless Readers has been constant. As a parent of three children at the Oscar Mayer School where Rochelle Lee was a librarian, Linda saw first-hand how Rochelle’s infectious love or reading and talking about books inspired her family. As a second and third grade teacher in Wilmette, Baltimore, and the Chicago public schools, Linda demonstrated her commitment to developing literacy skills and encouraging children to think. “I love the budding awareness kids can have and bring to what they read.”
Linda has embodied the Boundless Readers philosophy of reading and teaching in all her ventures on our behalf. Linda has held numerous leadership roles at the organization—serving as Board Member from 1994 to 2007, Board Chair from 2005 to 2007, Vice Chair and Chair of the Program Committee. Yet, it is Linda’s quiet persistence, grace and steady presence that made a lasting impact on Boundless Readers. For example, Linda worked side-by-side with Rochelle Lee to develop the Teachers and Children as Readers program (TACAR), adult book discussion groups for teachers that bring to life a fundamental tenet of the organization—that teachers who read are the best teachers of readers. “It was important to all of us that we provide teachers with an opportunity to personally experience what we want them to provide for their students. I’m pleased that this program continues and has become a hallmark of Boundless Readers.”
We offer our heartfelt congratulations and profound thanks to Linda for her over 20 years of unparalleled dedication to Boundless Readers and the children of Chicago.
Acceptance Speech for the Inaugural Rochelle Lee Tribute Award
by Linda K. Miner presented at the Boundless Readers 20th Anniversary Benefit, March 14, 2009
Thank you. I am deeply honored to receive this inaugural tribute award in the name of Rochelle Lee.
From the time I first learned of this award, I have been aware of the many others who have contributed their time and expertise and who share in this award. Their efforts and friendship have meant so much to this organization and to me personally.
On the occasion of the 20th anniversary year of the organization begun in her honor, I want to take the opportunity to make a few comments about Rochelle and her legacy, Rochelle Lee Boundless Readers.
How fortunate if in our lifetime we know someone who insists on making a difference, a meaningful, sometimes profound difference in the lives of so many. Rochelle is just such a person: a person of integrity, clarity of purpose, good will and tenacity. She made a difference in my life.
Reflecting on the 30 some years that I have personally known Rochelle, let me first say that it has always been an honor, a privilege really, to work with and for Rochelle, first in the Oscar Mayer School Library then at The Rochelle Lee Fund to Make Reading a Part of Children’s Lives and now in support of Boundless Readers.
Many of us here tonight first met Rochelle as the librarian at our children’s local public school. She was, however, like no other librarian and her library was like no other public school library. Fortunately for us, Rochelle was a collector of people as well as a collector of books. Her library was our school community.
Rochelle did not check books out or give grades or routinely teach card catalogue skills (remember?) She arranged the library according to subject and bought paperback books (unheard of in that day) – more choice of books, same cost. She opened the library before school started and kept it open after the last bell (again the exception for the time). She spoke to each child who walked through the door. She gave them a smile and often a hug, asked about their family, what they were reading, suggested other books and asked them to come back and tell her what they thought of the book they were checking out that day. 
When she had to retire because of illness, parents and colleagues sought to establish a legacy, an organization that would provide good books and work with teachers at other CPS schools to foster Rochelle’s practice and belief in the power of daily reading. With more money than we thought could be raised, 55 teachers on the north side of Chicago were funded and The Rochelle Lee Fund to Make Reading a Part of Children’s Lives began.
The organization became a collaborative learning community of volunteer staff and board, doing everything that needed doing. Joining the Board was a special personal opportunity for me as a teacher and parent. Our Program Committee worked with Rochelle on program development - considering content, methodology, and policies; finding presenters as well as scheduling and hosting professional development workshops for our teachers.
We wanted our workshops to be truly participatory without the usual over-Xeroxed handouts. It was important to create workshops in which teachers could relate personal experience in the service of professional learning, deepening the impact. It was to that end Rochelle asked how we expected teachers to facilitate a book discussion with their students without regular opportunities to read and discuss books themselves. She insisted that the program of monthly book discussion groups for teachers be called Teachers and Children as Readers so that the intended connection between the teachers experience and their students experience would never be in doubt.
The RLF and now Boundless Readers became a professional community, a unique forum, for teachers. In addition to the professional development opportunities, teachers returned to borrow books, exchange ideas, get support, continue in Book Discussion Groups. Some reapplied after a few years. Some became facilitators and leaders both at this organization and at their respective schools.
Rochelle’s passion for connecting the potential power of words, stories and ideas in books with a young mind is the focus of / legacy on which Boundless Readers works with Chicago Public School teachers and children.
Rochelle’s passion and work and the continued focus of this organization have always been to inspire the desire to read in children and their teachers (and by extension, their parents). Being read to, finding meaning in reading, engaging in discussion about what you read and what you think is to acquire language and develop critical thinking ability in increasing complexity. To Rochelle, all of these efforts are about the humanities, both with a “capital H” and the small h or one’s own humanity.
Every child who is launched as a reader brings change and opportunity to that child, to that family, to that community, to our democracy. Giving our children and their teachers the desire to read for meaning, to think critically and to communicate effectively will always matter to the individual and to our society.
In Rochelle’s honor, may Boundless Readers continue to hold fast to its mission and take aim at the same worthy target, with new talent, new energy and enough funding to make a bulls eye.
Ultimately, it is this insistence on never allowing the things that matter most to be at the mercy of the things that matter least...and knowing the difference...that is at the heart of Rochelle’s efforts and should help guide the important work of Boundless Readers.
Thank You.
Liz Russell, a student of Rochelle Lee as well as a CPS and Boundless Readers teacher, presented the inaugural Rochelle Lee Tribute Award.
via Network for Good
