Michigan Humanities Council Adds Tribal Library to Prime Time Family Reading Time®

(Lansing) – The Michigan Humanities Council, with help from our generous donors, welcomes the Saginaw Chippewa Tribal Library in Mt. Pleasant as a host site for Prime Time Family Reading Time®. This brings the number of Michigan Prime Time libraries to 15.

Prime Time is a literacy program directed toward families with young children who are non-active library users. The six-week session program includes the reading of a child’s story and facilitated discussion on the themes presented in the book. Through family reading, Prime Time breaks multi-cultural and multi-generational barriers.

“You cannot help but feel the magic in the room when you attend a Prime Time Family Reading Time® program at a local library. The dynamics of great storytelling and meaningful conversations of how these carefully selected books relate to everyday families and community life is so compelling,” Michigan Humanities Council Executive Director Katie Wolf explains. “Prime Time really does open up a whole new world of interesting topics for parents and children to explore together.

The Humanities Council is thrilled to bring this program to the Saginaw Chippewa Indian Tribe in the Mt. Pleasant area. We are able to expand into the Mt. Pleasant area this year because of generous donations from individuals throughout Michigan who understand the importance of families reading together and therefore learning and expanding their horizons together,” adds Wolf.
The Saginaw Chippewa Tribal Library (SCTL) serves more than 3,000 enrolled members and descendents of the Saginaw Chippewa Indian Tribe, its employees, and the general community through material lending, resource sharing and programming.

“Our library is committed to developing educated, confident, competitive, proficient citizens who excel in any venture they pursue while maintaining their rich Anishinaabe culture and language,” said Sarah Prielipp, tribal librarian for the Saginaw Chippewa Indian Tribe. “The Prime Time program provides our library a chance to impact our community by offering a literacy program that will enhance a family’s opportunities by providing them with stronger skills and confidence in working with their children.”

With this program, the Saginaw Chippewa Indian Tribe will build a community supportive and encouraging of literacy to help enhance the lives of its patrons and future patrons.

“Within the Native American community, one must always ask how a project affects those who are not even born, or the seventh generation,” Prielipp said.
Dennis Kequom, Sr., Tribal Chief of the Saginaw Chippewa Indian Tribe of Michigan, states, “Knowing how important health and family are to the Anishinaabe culture, the Prime Time program could not be more fitting and because of that, Tribal Council wholeheartedly endorses this program.”
The SCTL will host Prime Time sessions in the fall of 2011 and 2012. A spring session will be held in 2012 at its partner library, the Chippewa River District Library.

Prime Time was developed by the Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities (LEH), and is made possible in Michigan by the Michigan Humanities Council, LEH, American Library Association and Grand Haven Area Community Foundation – W.K. Kellogg Foundation.

Additional participating libraries include those in Alpena, Cassopolis, Charlevoix, Muskegon, Hamtramck, Highland, Jackson, Adrian, Monroe, Saginaw, South Haven, Morenci and Marquette. Kalamazoo Public Library has hosted Prime Time since 2000.

The Michigan Humanities Council, founded in 1974, is a private, nonprofit organization funded in part by the National Endowment for the Humanities and individual donations. For more information, visit www.michiganhumanities.org or call (517) 372-7770.

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