Read Aloud Delaware’s new logo is designed to match its mission statement ‘to create a lifelong impact through early childhood literacy’
Read Aloud Delaware, a Wilmington nonprofit dedicated to helping young children be ready to learn to read in school, unveiled a new logo Tuesday designed to illustrate its new strategic plan.
The new logo is a more polished version of its longtime symbol, featuring an adult and a child looking at a book.
James Spadola
It was designed to illustrate the nonprofit’s new mission statement “to create a lifelong impact through early childhood literacy” and vision statement that “children across Delaware will have the foundational literacy skills to succeed in school and life.”
Executive director James Spadola said a logo redesign seemed to go hand-in-hand with a redo of agency’s strategic plan set to expire in 2023.
Those plans are useful not only to guide the agency, but give foundations a sense of the organization when they are reviewing grant applications, he said.
“They can get a better feel of where you are, and where you’re going,” Spadola said. “It also shows the unity between t he board and the staff.”
Read Aloud serves children ages 1 to 5 at more than 100 readings sites up and down Delaware.
Gary Phillips, a digital media instructor at William Penn High School, designed the new logo for no charge.
It illustrates the bond between reader and child.
“We all know the importance of kids being read to, and that’s our guiding light,” Spadola said in a noon online reveal of the new logo.
Read Aloud’s focus
Kids who aren’t ready to read when they go to school will spend a lifetime making up for that deficit, he said.
“We were founded to help the kids, but the one thing that really made an impression on me is how much it means to our volunteers as well to be of service and read to the kids and interact with the kids,” he said.
Nearly once a week, a volunteer will tell a staff member how much they enjoy the work and how grateful they are to be able to do it.
“So that’s how to create a lifelong impact through to create a lifelong impact through early childhood literacy really is intended to tie the circle between the kids we serve our volunteers and really incorporate them into our mission statement.”
The agency also illustrated its new core values by tying them to the word READ: Respectful, Encouraging, Accountable and Dedicated.
And Read Aloud did the same thing with a Hispanic program, using the word read in Spanish: LEER, Leal (loyal); Entregado (dedicated); Esperanzador (encouraging); and Respetuoso (respectful).
