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Dear friend of WITS,

Over the past nine months, the WITS team has approached evolving challenges with passion, creativity,
and an unflinching belief in our mission:

Only one month after suspending all WITS programs, we launched Empowering Readers at Home
– a literacy resource page that included a portal for WITS mentors to submit encouraging
messages to their partner students. Since April, over 320 messages have since been shared.

The Rochelle Lee Teacher Award Summer Institute, normally hosted at the Literacenter in
Chicago’s West Loop, shifted to a virtual experience for 140 CPS educators. Workshop
facilitators, who began planning in January, enthusiastically adjusted their curriculum content and
structure to ensure workshops were accessible and meaningful to Awardees.

This summer, WITS adapted its Early Childhood Summer Program (ECSP) to a free online
learning space for pre-k through first grade students and their families. WITS addressed the
connectivity gap among our schools by partnering with the Chicago Public Library Foundation to
print and deliver 4,000 copies of ECSP Activity Books to 81 libraries across Chicago.

Beginning in November, WITS will embark on the largest virtual literacy mentorship program for
elementary students in Chicago Public Schools, connecting students and mentors virtually in
partnership with neighborhood elementary schools.

These unprecedented times are also our students’ childhoods. They are missing their friends. They are
learning in an unfamiliar environment, unable to turn to a classmate for a reassuring smile. Like us, they
are navigating through a new world, while figuring out what it means to be their unique wonderful selves.

The WITS community is strong. We have a history, and we most certainly have a future. In between, we
have one another and our commitment to literacy. Reading will always be a space for us to build
empathy, learn about others and ourselves, and perhaps provide a little escape when we need it.

By giving to WITS, you are supporting WITS’ next chapter – creating virtual mentorship opportunities for
CPS students. Together, we will give students a space to feel like themselves again while enjoying books
and connecting with a caring mentor.

Tena Latona
Chief Executive Officer
Working in the Schools (WITS)