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On Monday May 3rd Venable LLP hosted Everybody Wins! DC’s 4th Annual Readers Are Leaders Leadership Summit for the second consecutive year. “Leaders Building for Tomorrow: Bookprints in the Sand” was this years theme and these 86 students are certainly making their mark as leaders. The students are part of the EW!DC Readers Are Leaders (RAL) program, a peer mentoring initiative that matches older students with younger students for one-on-one reading during the lunch hour. The event honored 5th and 6th grade graduating students who took on leadership roles (as Older Partners) acting as mentors (to their Younger Partners) through Readers Are Leaders. The students read together during the lunch hour. This year the Readers Are Leaders program served a total of 552 students in nine DC public schools and together, these students read nearly 8,000 books! Sixth grade student Katherine Estrada, from Raymond Elementary School, kicked off the event with a speech to her fellow peers. Estrada described how being in RAL will help her in middle school given that the program taught her to “be responsible and to how be there for someone.” Spoken-word artist She Seven then took the stage and reminded the students to never lose their imagination as they grow older, before performing the rhyme “Hey Diddle Diddle” with a twist. Venable LLP’s Managing Partner, Karl Racine, served as the events keynote speaker. Racine first joined Venable LLP in 1989 and then rejoined the firm in 2002 after serving in the DC Public Defenders office and as an associate White House counsel during the Clinton Administration. He was named one of "The 50 Most Influential Minority Leaders in America" by The National Law Journal and has more than 20 years of litigation experience. Racine began by quoting a line from, what else, but Dr. Seuss’s’ “Oh! The Places You'll Go!” He then energized the students by going through the room and asking them to think of a word that best describes their role as a leader, and why that particular quality is important to them. Here are a few words and their explanations... E is for Energetic: A leader must be energetic to do all of their responsibilities I is for Imagination: Leaders have to show imagination (to their younger partners) and step-up as you never know when something hard is coming C is for Caring: As you must be able to care about your younger partner Other words that these Older Partners thought of included: comfort, responsible, brave, smart, honesty, self-control, excitement, and participation. To view the word gallery please click here EW!DC Chairman of the Board, Mark Young, shared a few words with the students about always having a dream and a vision, before they were presented with graduation medals. “I’d like to thank Mark Young for his encouraging words and Karl Racine for enabling the students to really focus on themselves [as leaders]. I’m very proud of the students and their commitment. It was inspiring to hear them identify themselves as leaders through their words of choice” said Readers Are Leaders Program Supervisor, Michelle Smith, after the Summit. “I am confident that through Readers Area Leaders the seed has been planted and they will remember this experience as they move on to middle school. May you continue to make ‘Bookprints in the Sand’ and always be a leader in your community and beyond.”
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