The Sacramento Book Festival has a lot of great literacy partners!
916 Ink
916 Ink is Sacramento’s arts-based creative writing and literacy nonprofit that provides workshops and tutoring to transform Sacramento youth into strong readers, confident communicators, and published authors. Our programs increase literacy skills, improve vocabulary, teach empathy, positively impact social and emotional learning, and expand communication skills. We envision a Sacramento region where every child and teen is given access to a culturally relevant creative writing program that leads them to believe in themselves and to understand the power of the written word.
Friends of the Sacramento Public Library – Book Den
Friends of the Sacramento Public Library is a volunteer helpmate to the award-winning Sacramento Public Library system. As a membership-supported nonprofit, the Friends advocate, raise funds, and provide crucial support to the system’s 28 libraries. There is a Branch Friends Group at each of the 28 branch libraries of Sacramento Public Library. Friends of the Sacramento Public Library is proud to serve as a community ambassador for the Library. Our volunteer activities help the Library expand the materials and programs serving our diverse community beyond those normally included in the Library’s operating budget. We also advocate on behalf of increased funding for the Library through our public relations initiatives and publications.
About the Book Den: The Book Den is a brick and mortar, non-profit, used bookstore run by the Friends. We average about 80,000 used books, media, magazines, games, puzzles, records, DVDs, and CDs between our store and warehouse. We also sell on Amazon and Ebay in addition to special sales throughout the year along with donating to many other non-profits, schools, etc.. Everything is donated and we are all volunteers. The Book Den is located at 8250 Belvedere Ave E, Sacramento, CA 95826. We’re open for sales on Wednesday, Friday and Saturday from 9am to 3pm. Donations are taken on Wednesdays and Saturdays from 9am to noon.
Mustard Seed School
Mustard Seed School is a free, private, emergency school serving children experiencing homelessness, ages 3 to 15. While families work with our Outreach Team to seek a stable living situation, community resources and more, eachstudent is welcomed into a classroom environment lovingly prepared with their academic and social-emotional needs in mind.
Students receive healthy snacks and meals, school supplies, clothing, survival supplies, counseling, health screenings, and access to various other community resources.
Mustard Seed’s main goal is to provide a safe, structured, nurturing environment as we prepare students to enroll in public school.
Sacramento Literacy Foundation
In Sacramento, the most diverse city in America, reading is the most critical equity skill that can be taught to children. Reading is agency. Reading and not reading are correlated with nearly every positive and negative outcome, respectively. Reading is the Civil Rights Issue of our time.
The Sacramento Literacy Foundation (SLF) is dedicated to ensuring all children can read at grade level, with a key focus on achieving 3rd-grade reading proficiency. Our work centers around three core program areas: providing access to diverse, high-quality books for under-resourced children, supporting summer reading initiatives to combat learning loss, and advocating for structured literacy through curriculum enhancement, teacher training, and after-school programs.
Our efforts span Sacramento County, with a spotlight on our flagship project, the Promise Zone Literacy Initiative. This initiative focuses on kindergarten through 2nd-grade students in the Sacramento Promise Zone, a federally designated area with high unemployment and low literacy rates. To support these children, we intentionally provide each child with a bag of five high-quality, culturally relevant books to take home. Research shows that having books in the home can be as impactful on a child’s future as their parents’ education level or income. Five books are significant because that’s the number needed to help children retain their reading skills over the summer. By addressing literacy gaps early, SLF is helping lay the foundation for a lifetime of learning and opportunity.