The center's one full-time staff person is responsible for supervising the children, gathering materials for students and volunteers, planning learning activities, recruiting and training volunteers, and organizing special programs. Without this core of dedicated and diverse people, the center could not exist. The one common denominator is the desire to encourage a love of reading and learning the child's crucial formative years. The Foster Reading Center is located in two large adjoining classrooms on the second floor of the Family Focus Community Center, at Foster Street and Dewey Avenue. The space is divided into several distinct sections.
Long tables offer ample space for individual work on homework or projects.
At small, round tables, several children can sit together for a storytelling session or work independently on books, study sheets, puzzles, or games. One or two children can play interactive educational games on the computer. The Roving Reader Program Reading aloud to young children is the single most important activity required for eventual success in learning to read. In order to give some support and encouragement to the women who care for children in small day-care homes in Evanston, the Roving Reader Program was initiated. Twice a week, in cooperation with the Evanston Public Library, which supplies all the books, the Foster Reading Center send professional readers to 30 day-care homes to read to the children.