YES Reading

In 1999, three community leaders, Mary Wright Shaw, Molly McCrory, and Jean Bacigalupi launched a one-on-one tutoring program to help children who had fallen behind in reading at Belle Haven Community School in Menlo Park, CA.  Mary, Molly, and Jean, recruited a dedicated group of volunteers to tutor students and these volunteers quickly recognized the powerful effect of one-on-one attention

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William Webster introduced Jean Bacigalupi to Patsy Johnson, Executive Vice President, J&R Associates and facilitated a $12,000 grant from William Rosetti, CEO, J&R Associates, to complete the construction of a trailer to be used for the reading program.  Ms Johnson also contributed additional amounts totaling $6000 over the next few years.  At the time, J&R Associates was the largest multifamily property owner (some 700 units) in East Palo Alto and wanted to benefit the community.

 

Two years later, William assisted Jean in establishing the reading project as a California non-profit which became known as YES Reading.  It would expand dramatically to other communities and in 2008 was renamed as Reading Partners (readingpartners.org).