In one week this April, 75 volunteers stepped into 124 classrooms across Chautauqua County and changed how more than 1,800 children think about reading. United Way of Chautauqua County's 2026 Literacy Week, held April 20–24, paired volunteers from 19 different organizations with students in seven school districts — and sent every child home with a brand-new book of their own.
The scale of this initiative matters because it reveals something essential about community health: the willingness of neighbors to show up for the next generation. When Monica Simpson, Co-Chair of CHQ Professionals Group, talks about the program, she focuses not on logistics but on something deeper. Volunteers understand they are delivering a concrete message when they sit down with a child to share a story. They are saying, without words, that their community believes in this child's future.
This year's Literacy Week grew from last year's already substantial reach — 124 classrooms across ten school buildings, up from 118 classrooms in 2025. The schools that participated stretch across northern Chautauqua County: Dunkirk, Fredonia, Forestville, Ripley, Sherman, Sinclairville, and Brocton. Behind the scenes, the Northern Chautauqua Community Foundation provided a grant that made it possible to purchase every single book distributed — removing any barrier to participation and ensuring that students from all economic backgrounds left with something they could keep.
The volunteers themselves tell a story of cross-sector collaboration that extends far beyond what any single organization could accomplish alone. Readers came from Jamestown Plastics and Cattaraugus County Bank, from the SUNY Fredonia Women's Soccer Team and Southern Tier Environments for Living, from the Boys and Girls Club and Fidelis, from county government offices and local nonprofits. Victoria Howell-Siracuse, Community Health Program Associate with the Chautauqua Health Network, was among the 75 who participated. This diversity of participation — spanning business, education, health, civic organizations, and county government — reflects United Way of Chautauqua County's role as what Daniel Siracuse, the organization's Northern Chautauqua Community Relations Coordinator, calls a "mobilization engine."
"When volunteers step into a classroom and open a book with the children, they are showing those students that their community believes in them and is invested in their future," Siracuse said. The data backs up the sentiment: 100 percent of volunteers surveyed said they would participate again next year.
United Way has been organizing literacy events in Chautauqua County for a decade now, and the program has evolved year to year based on what schools need and what volunteers can offer. What remains constant is the agency's focus on academic success and opportunity for young people — part of Youth Opportunity, one of four core strategic impact areas that guide the organization's work.
This kind of initiative works because it is simple at its heart: community members read aloud, children listen, every student gets a book. Yet in its simplicity lies something that matters enormously. Literacy Week 2026 reached nearly 1,800 young people with a reminder that reading matters, and that they matter. As the volunteers file back to their offices and classrooms, those students sit down with their new books, understanding at some level that their community has invested in them.