October 2, 2019

I. 2020 Book Selection: Here’s what you have all been waiting for. We have confirmed availability of these six titles for 2020. We are very pleased with this year’s selections.

1. The Very Impatient Caterpillar by Ross Burach
2. Nobody Hugs a Cactus by Carter Goodrich
3. Cake! by Sue Hendra and Paul Linnett
4. El Chupacabras by Adam Rubin
5. Once Upon a Goat by Dan Richards
6. High Five by Adam Rubin

II. IMPORTANT!!:  While we have heard from many of our continuing, or in some cases new, community contacts for this year we have not heard from everyone. Would each recipient of this letter please respond either confirming your participation or directing us to the proper individual? Please respond by October 15 if you would. We continue to be truly humbled and honored by all the support we receive across the state.

III. Sample Sets:  We will be asking Ingram, our newest partner, to distribute the sample sets by early December.  This will get them to the schools prior to Christmas break.  We will ask for all book orders to be returned to us no later than January 30, 2020. This will give us a bit more leeway when dealing with the inevitable surprises that seem to come along every year. We will provide more details as we approach those dates.

 IV. Joining Forces: As always, we want to encourage communities to come together to celebrate literacy next May, The bigger and more exciting we can make each celebration the more memorable it will be for the children. Any community wishing to join us here in Casper would be most welcome. 

V. Fundraising: We are once more committing to provide the funding for the books, bookplates and book bags across the state. Your assignment is to identify a location for your celebration, add the special touches that work in your community, and then get all your first graders together for the special day.

We want to say thank you to those of you who provide us leads for funding sources and those who find grants in your community. We appreciate any financial support you can help us with. We are planning to maintain the budget for 2020 at $105,000 in cash and in-kind support.

VI. Out of State Celebrations: There are ten celebrations in the state of Oregon, two in California, as well as two cities in Minnesota that patterned their celebrations on your Wyoming events. We have been blessed to travel to all of those over many years to participate in these exciting programs. All of these combined events provide hardback, personalized books to nearly 4,000 additional children each year!

Thank you for your continued support of “Wyoming Reads!” We welcome any suggestions you might have to improve the experience for the children.

John Jorgensen