What's New

Meet Diantha Schull, RTG's New Development Director

10/1/2009

For more than twenty years, Diantha D. Schull, Read to Grow’s new development director, has demonstrated her commitment to increasing young childrens’ access to books and literacy by working with libraries and educational organizations.

The link between positive child development and books has been a key theme throughout Diantha’s professional career, starting when she was a young grantmaker and designed the New York State Council on the Art’s first funding guidelines for family reading programs in public libraries.  Since then she has worked on emergent literacy and child development in a variety of capacities, including directing a study of French child care by American policy-makers and health professionals; and by assisting in the design, funding and dissemination of Family Place Libraries, a program for parents and caregivers of very young children that is now in more than 200 American libraries.

Diantha plans to draw on her experiences as a fundraiser to help expand support for Read to Grow.  “This is such an exciting time, as the organization looks forward to a second decade of programs and services for Connecticut’s babies and families.  I believe the scope of our services needs to be even more widely known, and that new donors and sponsors will be attracted by Read to Grow’s strong record of accomplishments.”  

Those accomplishments are what sparked Diantha’s enthusiasm and interest. “I was bowled over to learn that Read to Grow reaches 50% of the parents with babies born in Connecticut annually, that it distributes more than 100,000 books to community organizations, schools and families each year, and that it does this in large measure by working with more than 100 volunteers,” she says.   “This is such an important program for building a more competitive, healthy and literate state.”

Diantha started at Read to Grow in August and is working with the Board of Directors, the Development Committee, staff and key Patrons to explore opportunities for widening Read to Grow’s support base.  She intends to keep current supporters well informed and will be writing a regular column in our newsletter.  Stay tuned. 

To contact Diantha, call 203-488-6800, or email at dschull@readtogrow.org

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