This fall, The Big Read Sonoma County will be celebrating the novel To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee. KRCB is the lead organization for this project.

To Kill a Mockingbird is a really wonderful novel with a bunch of interwoven themes: coming of age, the South in the early 20th century, how a community copes with racial tensions, and the criminal justice system, to name a few. There will be  lots of great events around the county this year on these themes, and both KRCB Television and Radio will be doing related programming.

The Big Read Sonoma County grew out of Sonoma County Reads, a countywide reading program that has been running for about eight years. Last year we got funding from the NEA and were able to expand the program.

Like last year, this year we are offering minigrants between $50 and $500 to people who come up with their own creative ideas to encourage people to read and discuss the book. Last year some of our most creative ideas came from our minigrant awardees, so I look forward to seeing what kinds of creative ideas come this year.

The deadline is August 1, 5 pm to me here at the station (KRCB Attn: Robin Metalitz, 5850 Labath Ave., Rohnert Park, CA 94928). There is a very simple one page form, which you can get here (Word doc) or here (fill-in pdf) .

Even if you don't apply for or receive a minigrant, I definitely encourage you to participate this year. There will be a calendar of events at the Big Read Sonoma County website . Folks should feel free to come up with their own creative ideas and let me know. And keep watching this blog for more highlights.

Questions? Ideas? Feel free to call me at 707-584-2005 or email me at robin_metalitz@krcb.org

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The other day I got a chance to visit one of the Boys and Girls Clubs of Petaluma. They serve almost 4,000 kids at 10 locations in Petaluma and surrounding areas. Right now they are in the midst of their summer programs and the clubhouse I visited (Lucchesi Park Clubhouse on Maria Drive) was full of kids of all ages. If you're unfamiliar with them, do check them out .

I had a good conversation with Development Director Matt Martin on a variety of topics:

How do we build a community where youth and their contributions are valued, not feared?

How can we better recognize their contributions as a way of providing positive feedback?

How do nonprofit organizations (which often have notoriously high turnover) build institutional relationships that support youth?

Please feel free to leave your thoughts on these and related matters in the comments.

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