A recent comment on the Programming Librarian Facebook page caught my eye. Sandy Whipple wrote that she “would love to see more libraries, both public and academic, hosting programs and events as participants in The September Project.” Sandy, I can't promise that this blog post will increase participation, but it definitely looks like a program worth sharing for those who are unfamiliar with it.

According to the September Project website, “Since 2004, libraries across the world have organized events about freedom and issues that matter to their communities during the month of September. This grassroots project favors free over fee, public over private, and voices over silence.” The site is an excellent resource for programming ideas, with libraries of all types from around the world sharing their plans for September.

For example, Public Library Berio of Genoa (Italy) offered:

This year our commemoration is called “WAR!—Yesterday’s and today’s conflicts,” a public conference with a slide show by Livio Senigalliesi, photojournalist. From the falling of the Wall in Berlin to the civil war in former Jugoslavia, from Iraq to Kurdistan, from the genocide in Rwanda to the wars in Caucasus… the report of more than 20 years of history of the world in the career of a war photography freelance.

Saint Martin’s University in Lacey, Washington, has announced their participation in the September Project. Their events focus on “how libraries can help explore controversial topics”:

A Digital Journalism class will explore the controversy surrounding the Olympia food co-op’s decision to boycott Israeli products (on a local scale) and issues surrounding the Israeli/Palestinian conflict (on a global scale). The Digital Journalism students will research the topic and create a slide show which will include 40-80 quotes, various sources and images, representing multiple perspectives on the issue. The slide show will run on the library wall monitors during a week in September. This slide show will also be made available online.

Merensky Library at the University of Pretoria in South Africa shared:

September is heritage month in South Africa, and a good opportunity to celebrate our freedom, in particular our freedom of expression. We decided to do an exhibition of books that were banned during the Apartheid era, and encourage students to read the once banned books.

And, of course, Sandy Whipple's library, Goffstown Public Library in New Hampshire, has its own September Project scheduled. On September 11, the library will stay open for twenty-four hours and feature such special events as thank-a-hero cardmaking; a knit/crochet-a-thon; a screening of Taking Chance, a film about a military escort officer who accompanies the body of a fallen soldier home; and a candlelight vigil.

Do you have September Project plans? Share them below and at the September Project website.

Editor’s note: Today’s post is part of a month-long series featuring Q&A with past winners of the Sara Jaffarian School Library Program Award for Exemplary Humanities Programming.

The Sara Jaffarian Award was established in 2006 to recognize and promote excellence in humanities programming in elementary and middle school (K-8) libraries. It is presented annually by the Public Programs Office, in cooperation with the American Association of School Librarians (AASL), and named for Sara Jaffarian, whose donation to ALA’s Cultural Communities Fund established the award. Jaffarian, a retired school librarian and long-time ALA member, spent her career passionately advocating for school libraries in every school. Find out more about the Sara Jaffarian award. Applications for the 2011 Jaffarian Award will be accepted September 1, 2010–December 15, 2010.

Barbara Ungar is the Library Media Teacher at Central Elementary School in Wilmette, Illinois. Her program, Central School Third Grade Virtual Museum—A Day in the Neighborhood, won the 2007 Jaffarian Award.

Programming Librarian: Please briefly describe your school library’s humanities program. Why did you decide to put the program up for consideration for the Jaffarian Award?

Barbara Ungar: Our program was an outgrowth of our third grade social studies curriculum with the focus on learning about Chicago. We wanted the students to understand how Chicago was built through immigration and the growth of ethnic communities. Each of our five sections of third grade visited and learned about a different community/neighborhood within the city of Chicago. The students had a primary source research experience in the neighborhood, visited a local history museum with relevant information, and used other resources to create a web page as part of our virtual museum about Wilmette, Chicago, and Illinois. They compared each neighborhood to the others as well as their own community and drew conclusions about similarities and differences between the neighborhoods. We also utilized our art, music, and library programs to further incorporate knowledge and understanding about these five cultures. Our results can be viewed at the Grade 3 Virtual Museum Project website.

PL: What were some challenges that you encountered during your library’s humanities program? How did you overcome them?

BU: We needed a lot of coordination between our staff. There were eight teachers involved with the librarian acting as the project coordinator. We needed to secure in-school planning time through our administration. We also wanted community involvement and used our PTA to help us find members of our school community with the ethnic backgrounds we were studying so that they could visit the classes and help us with stories, food, and artifacts. Financing was also a challenge and we applied for several grants to help us with this. Local businesses were approached and one even provided all the bus services that we needed to transport the students to all our primary source research opportunities. Doing something of this magnitude might have been disruptive if we had not found a way to integrate this totally with existing curriculum thus establishing a better "buy-in" from all the teachers and administration.

PL: What do you think set your program apart from all the other 2007 Jaffarian applicants?

BU: Not knowing what the other applicants submitted, I would guess it was the fact that all this was coordinated through the library/librarian (so the library was the stimulus and the main focus of the project). I also think it was a unique way of delivering curriculum for all the departments.

PL: How does your school library plan to use the $4,000 award?

BU: We have used this to develop another humanities program for our second grade students. The students have become "museum curators" for Native American regional tribes. We purchased artifacts from different regions, brought in Native American storytellers, taken them to local museums to view existing collections, purchased CDs and DVDs to help them learn about the Native American traditions and use of natural resources to understand indigenous cultures. They use this information to create a catalog and Native American tale for their regional study.

PL: Do you have any advice for prospective Jaffarian Award applicants?

BU: Don't give up. Be creative. Get the support of your principal before you start. Follow all the directions in the application.

The American Library Association (ALA) Public Programs Office and the Young Adult Library Services Association (YALSA) announced the theme and book titles for the fourth round of Great Stories CLUB grants. YALSA’s Outreach to Young Adults with Special Needs Interest Group selected “Second Chances” as the Great Stories CLUB theme, along with the following titles: Hate List by Jennifer Brown (Little, Brown Books, 2009); Dope Sick by Walter Dean Myers (Amistad, 2009); and The Brothers Torres by Coert Voorhees (Hyperion, 2009).

Launched in 2005, the Great Stories CLUB (Connecting Libraries, Underserved teens, and Books) is a book club program designed to reach underserved, troubled teen populations through books that are relevant to their lives. All types of libraries (public, school, academic, and special) located within or working in partnership with facilities serving troubled teens in the United States and its territories are eligible to apply for a Great Stories Club grant. Potential organizations for Great Stories CLUB partnership include juvenile justice facilities, drug rehabilitation centers, nonprofit organizations serving teen parents, alternative high schools, agencies serving teenaged foster children, shelters serving homeless and runaway youth, and other agencies. Tips for creating a partnership:

• Gather a list of potential community partners, and decide which agency to approach. If you are not familiar with the agencies in your community that serve troubled teens, consult the yellow pages or the Internet. You may wish to search for local social service agencies, the department of juvenile justice, the department of children and family services, or any area alternative schools.
• Once you’ve selected a potential community partner, identify a contact person at the facility, keeping in mind who the players are and what the politics may be like. Possible contacts include directors, teachers, librarians, supervisors, counselors, and so on. There may be a Friends of the Juvenile Hall group that may be of help, a board member at your library who volunteers at a local shelter or social service agency, a reading teacher at an alternative school, or another person who can help make your case within the organization.
• Depending on what your research has yielded, speak with the contact you’ve identified. Potential partners may be interested to know that, by participating in the Great Stories CLUB, they will be part of a national teen services initiative of the American Library Association that is being supported by Oprah’s Angel Network.
• Present your contact with a clear and simple proposal describing the program and activities you would like to implement.
• Work with your contact to create a workable program plan, taking into consideration such factors as institutional procedures (security clearance, authorization, and so on).

Electronic applications for the reading and discussion series will be accepted September 13 through November 19. Following the application process, 150 libraries will be selected to develop a book discussion program for teens based on the three theme-related titles and will be given copies of the books to share with each participant. Participating libraries will also receive access to an online toolkit to support the program, including sample discussion questions, recommended titles for further reading, and other resources. Small cash grants ($100–$200) will be awarded to as many as twenty-five sites for the support of program-related expenses.

For more information on the Great Stories CLUB, including guidelines, book descriptions and application instructions, visit the Great Stories CLUB pages.

Editor’s note: Today’s post is part of a month-long series featuring Q&A with past winners of the Sara Jaffarian School Library Program Award for Exemplary Humanities Programming.

The Sara Jaffarian Award was established in 2006 to recognize and promote excellence in humanities programming in elementary and middle school (K–8) libraries. It is presented annually by the Public Programs Office, in cooperation with the American Association of School Librarians (AASL), and named for Sara Jaffarian, whose donation to ALA’s Cultural Communities Fund established the award. Jaffarian, a retired school librarian and long-time ALA member, spent her career passionately advocating for school libraries in every school. Find out more about the Sara Jaffarian award. Applications for the 2011 Jaffarian Award will be accepted September 1, 2010–December 15, 2010.

Sandra Wiseman is the School Library Media Specialist at Woodsdale Elementary School in Wheeling, West Virginia. Her program, History Hits the Road to Woodsdale, won the 2008 Jaffarian Award.

Programming Librarian: Please briefly describe your school library’s humanities program. Why did you decide to put the program up for consideration for the Jaffarian Award?

Sandra Wiseman: We received our award for a program called History Hits the Road to Woodsdale. Historical re-enactors spent the day at school providing 1800s hands on activities for our students. They ground corn, spun wool, marbled paper, and visited an authentic covered wagon. In the evening we held a family program that included snacks and candle dipping. I was searching the internet for grant opportunities and ran across the Sara Jaffarian application. I read through the requirements and thought our program fit them perfectly. I thought the questions were reasonable and would not take a big time commitment to complete.

PL: What were some challenges that you encountered during your library’s humanities program? How did you overcome them?

SW: Funding for this project came from three sources: the school’s general fund, the PTA, and from the WV Humanities Council. Balancing the money to meet all of our expenses took some work. We had to apply to the Humanities Council for the funding with no guarantee that we would receive what we were asking for. We had to sign a contract with History Hits the Road prior to knowing if all of the funding would come through. We had to hope for the best, and fortunately everything worked out. We would have had to look for another donor if we were denied the grant. We also had a little trouble contacting the History Hits the Road staff to work out all of the details because they were traveling a lot and giving many programs around the state. We sent communications early and often and in a variety of formats (email, office phone, cell phone, etc.)

PL: What do you think set your program apart from all the other 2008 Jaffarian applicants?

SW: I think the fact that we worked with many different agencies to make our program successful set us apart. The Cooperative Extension Service helped us identify the History Hits the Road scholars. The teachers at every grade level planned special activities to extend the learning and provide memorable experiences for our children. We worked the PTA, the principal, and the Humanities Council to fund the project. This was truly a community effort and I tried to stress this in our application. I also think the fact that we provided hands-on programming during the day for students and then provided activities for the children and their parents in the evening probably set us apart also.

PL: How does your school library plan to use the $4,000 award? 

SW: The money was used to buy library books and computer equipment and to fund a return visit with the History Hits the Road scholars for our students.

PL: Do you have any advice for prospective Jaffarian Award applicants?

SW: The tricky thing about this award is that you apply the school year after the program takes place. It is important that the applicant stay very organized and keep copies of all of the paperwork involved (applications, schedules, flyers, photographs, etc.) It is also important to identify and remember key people who were actively involved in making the project successful. You will need them to write letters in support of the application. If you don’t recognize who these people are during the time the program is actually taking place, you won’t be able identify them a year later.

I’ve been feeling the travel bug lately, but lack of time and money means I’ll be puting my dream vacation off, at least for a while. If I lived near Newnan, Georgia, however, I could travel vicariously through Newnan Carnegie Library’s Armchair Travelers program.

Offered monthly, the program highlights a different country each session. This month’s destination is Israel; Faye Holzaepfel, a Newnan resident, will share stories and photographs from her own travels. Previous countries have included Poland, China, South Africa, and Scotland.

Aside from my personal interest in the topic, I think this makes a great option for low-cost library programming. By using volunteer speakers from the community, libraries can limits their expenses to refreshments.

Do you offer travel programs in your library?

Now that summer reading programs have wrapped up, I found myself wondering how libraries were welcoming fall. I discovered Dexter (Mich.) District Library’s September line-up, which offers an impressive variety of programs for kids, families, and adults.

Book discussions are, of course, a focus. The library offers book-related events for kids, teens, and adults:

• The Super Stories book discussion group for grades K–2 will discuss “Learn about Your Library,” a fun program that will teach young learners about the materials available in the library and the services the library offers to this age group.

• The Book Snackers book discussion group for grades 3–5 will discuss Beezus and Ramona by Beverly Cleary. Young readers will be able to share their favorite parts of the book and make some new friends.

• The Somewhere in Time history-themed book club for adults will discuss The Murder of King Tut: the Plot to Kill the Child King by James Patterson.

• The Better off Read book club for adults will discuss The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro.

• The Books and Chocolate program for teens encourages teens to bring a favorite book and share it with friends.

For those more visually oriented, Dexter offers movies in September:

• Muffins & Movies presents a variety of current and older major motion pictures for adults and seniors.

• Friday Night at the Movies shows a variety of current major motion pictures.

For those who prefer to listen, the library also offers musical events:

• In honor of Grandparents Day, the Hudson Education Center will present the first annual Grandparents Day Musical Showcase, featuring seventh-grade musicians from Mill Creek Middle School (plus a special guest).

• Violinist Maria Bessmeltseva, a Russian-born violinist, will perform classical music. From an early age, Bessmeltseya performed in St. Petersburg concert halls such as Glinka Philharmonic Chamber Hall and St. Petersburg State Capella. She represented the University of Michigan in The Conservatory Project in Washington, D.C., performed at the Kennedy Center on the Millennium Stage, and performed in New York’s Carnegie Hall with the University of Michigan orchestra.

A variety of programs are offered just for fun:

• Adults and teen can bring their own knitting or needlecraft project and make new friends at the Sip ’n Stitch drop-in program for adults and teens.

• Ages eight and older can challenge each other in a drop-in session of Nintendo Wii Sports (snacks also provided).

• Chef Ming Louie will show attendees how to make authentic Chinese egg rolls at the “Making Egg Rolls with Ming!” program.

• “Mother Goose” (AKA Trudy Bulkley) will present an all-ages program featuring favorite stories and nursery rhymes as well as refreshments.

The library also offers programs of a more practical nature:

• A college fair for teens and parents will address getting into college, paying for college, writing admissions essays, taking admissions exams, and joining college clubs and activities as well as general college information. Cassie J. Olson, Ann Arbor Kaplan Testing Center director; John B. Boshoven, author of From Chaos to Control: A Guide for Students and Families for Solving the College Admissions Puzzle and counselor for continuing education at Community High School in Ann Arbor; Jenni Marsh, founder of College Bound; and a panel of current university students discussing campus life will be available for questions.

• Julie and Louis Nagel will present “Overcoming Performance Anxiety,” a look at the psychological issues that may affect performing and public speaking. Louis Nagel will perform a Beethoven piece on piano after the presentation.

• “Investing Fundamentals,” the first program in a fall series on investing, will give an overview of common elements of financial markets as well as basic fundamentals for investing.

• The Michigan Chapter of SCORE, a nationwide organization of businessmen and women who volunteer their services to assist small businesses and entrepreneurs, will present “The Fundamentals of Starting Your Own Business.” SCORE representatives will offer support and counseling to area business owners.

What programs does your library have on the agenda for fall?

Editor’s note: Today’s post is part of a month-long series featuring Q&A with past winners of the Sara Jaffarian School Library Program Award for Exemplary Humanities Programming.

The Sara Jaffarian Award was established in 2006 to recognize and promote excellence in humanities programming in elementary and middle school (K-8) libraries. It is presented annually by the Public Programs Office, in cooperation with the American Association of School Librarians (AASL), and named for Sara Jaffarian, whose donation to ALA’s Cultural Communities Fund established the award. Jaffarian, a retired school librarian and long-time ALA member, spent her career passionately advocating for school libraries in every school. Find out more about the Sara Jaffarian award. Applications for the 2011 Jaffarian Award will be accepted September 1, 2010–December 15, 2010.

Sally Rasch is the librarian at the Carroll Academy for International Studies in Houston, Texas. Her program, Learning about the World with a Global Perspective, won the 2009 Jaffarian Award.

Programming Librarian: Please briefly describe your school library’s humanities program. Why did you decide to put the program up for consideration for the Jaffarian Award?

Sally Rasch: Carroll’s [annual] humanities program centers on the school curriculum and bringing the world to the students at Carroll. We have at least one programming event every fall such as an election that coincides with the public elections. However, we go more in depth and have voter registration, elections for school events, and even the Electoral College. Last year we did the Carroll Olympics. We have a book parade the Friday before Thanksgiving. This parade promotes literature and has classrooms use upper level thinking skills to come up with a global way to advertise their chosen book. In the spring we do an additional program. We have a post office and a science fair in May, and Storybook Opera comes every year. Johnny Appleseed and other special story time/lessons are annual occurrences. We have had Custom’s Houses, World Council meetings, and author visits. In addition, we check out about 5,000 books per month, and are involved in literacy at our school.

Our programming centers on the idea that students learn more when you bring the world to them whether it is a lesson about the rain forest or the ocean. Tactile whole school lessons which are planned with the support of the teachers and administrators keeps everyone involved and helps support the curriculum and makes the library an important part of the school.

I do not usually apply for or even read awards. A friend of mine who is the Systems Administrator for our district, Cindy Buchanan, told me about the award and that I should apply. I hesitated but read the ALA blurb. In reading about Sara Jaffarian, I felt that I had found a kindred spirit. The following quote says everything I believe about libraries:

Throughout my career, I worked in many capacities to promote the idea that every school needs a library. In order to have an excellent school, there must be an excellent school library! To achieve this, more is needed than just books and other materials—curriculum-related programming has the power to take a school library to the next level, exciting students, bringing in parents, and getting the attention of administrators and community leaders. I’m delighted to establish an award that will not only recognize excellence in this arena, but also provide training for school librarians across the country.

In these days of budget cuts and students with isolated experiences, it is imperative that the library remain a relevant and vital part of the school’s curriculum.

PL: What were some challenges that you encountered during your library’s humanities program? How did you overcome them?

SR: It is vital that you make sure everyone understands the curriculum connections and upper level thinking skills that you can provide. The planning must include administrative and teacher support. Every second is vital in this data driven world. The programming must be relevant. Preplanning is essential so that implementation runs smoothly. Starting small and working up to larger programs has worked well for me.

PL: What do you think set your program apart from all the other 2009 Jaffarian applicants?

SR: Our programming is relevant and involves the whole school. I work with students, teachers, administrators, and parents to insure the success of the program and the library. The programming changes with the year and curriculum changes. This is vital to keeping the library relevant.

PL: How does your school library plan to use the $4,000 award?

SR: We are buying items that can be used for further programming such as costumes, microphones, etc.

PL: Do you have any advice for prospective Jaffarian Award applicants?

SR: Apply [because] you never know what may come of the application. Just filling out the application gave me insights into my programming that I used the following year. Attending ALA and meeting librarians from around the USA was an incredible experience.

This month EDSITEment highlights the Statue of Liberty and Thomas Hart Benton’s The Sources of Country Music as well as resources for United States history, world history, literature and language arts, and arts and culture.

Monthly Feature: Lady Liberty

In August of 1884, on the shore of New York Harbor, the cornerstone was laid for what is today one of the most recognized monuments in the United States: the Statue of Liberty. The statue’s location, overlooking Ellis Island, meant that in the years to come the “Mother of Exiles” would be one of the first things millions of immigrants would see when entering the United States. In August of 1894, ten years after the monument’s cornerstone was set in place, Congress created the Bureau of Immigration to oversee the thousands of newcomers who were greeted by the statue every year

Investigate the origins of the statue, then ferry students on a virtual tour, tweet and share photos of Lady Liberty. Have your students use this information to create a “Heritage Journal,” investigate their ancestry, or learn about immigration policy.

Picturing America Lesson: Thomas Hart Benton—The Sources of Country Music

The old music cannot last much longer. I count it a great privilege to have heard it in the sad twang of mountain voices before it died.—Thomas Hart Benton

By analyzing The Sources of Country Music, students will see the story of Benton’s America and discover how the processes of modernity changed American life in the early decades of the twentieth century. By listening to folk music, they will understand how advances in audio recording both captured and changed this music. Moreover, they will discover how recording technology and the movies shaped the images of country style music.

Teacher’s Top Choices for the New School Year

Too many tasks? Too little time? No sweat! EDSITEment has collected its most frequently accessed content for August and September. Check out the links below and discover lessons, student activities, and interactives as well as quality Web sites vetted by an NEH Blue Ribbon panel.

History & Social Studies

• U.S. History: From Magna Carta to The Great Awakening
• World History and Culture: Cave Art to Marco Polo

Literature & Language Arts

• American, British, and World: From Beowulf to Things Fall Apart

Art & Culture

• Art and Art History: From Caves to Pompeii
• Folktales, Fairytales, and Mythology: From Aesop to Cinderella

About EDSITEment

Now in its eleventh year, EDSITEment is a partnership among the National Endowment for the Humanities, Verizon Foundation’s Thinkfinity, and the National Trust for the Humanities. This free-access, user-friendly website showcases more than 300 top humanities sites that have been identified and reviewed for content, design, and educational impact in fields such as social studies, history, literature, foreign languages, art, and culture. EDSITEment also creates grade-specific lesson plans that incorporate online resources, original source materials, and interactive learning activities, games, and quizzes for use by K–12 teachers and students. Find out why the American Association of School Librarians selected EDSITEment as one the 25 Top Website for Teaching and Learning for 2010.

Join EDSITEment on Facebook and Twitter, or visit the Thinkfinity Community to collect, modify, and dialogue about educational resources.

Editor’s note: Today’s post is part of a month-long series featuring Q&A with past winners of the Sara Jaffarian School Library Program Award for Exemplary Humanities Programming.

The Sara Jaffarian Award was established in 2006 to recognize and promote excellence in humanities programming in elementary and middle school (K-8) libraries. It is presented annually by the Public Programs Office, in cooperation with the American Association of School Librarians (AASL), and named for Sara Jaffarian, whose donation to ALA’s Cultural Communities Fund established the award. Jaffarian, a retired school librarian and long-time ALA member, spent her career passionately advocating for school libraries in every school. Find out more about the Sara Jaffarian award. Applications for the 2011 Jaffarian Award will be accepted September 1, 2010–December 15, 2010.

Nicolette Vaillancourt is the Learning Resource Center director at Jefferson Elementary School in Elmhurst, Illinois. Her program, The Elmhurst History Project, won the 2010 Jaffarian Award.

Programming Librarian: Please briefly describe your school library’s humanities program. Why did you decide to put the program up for consideration for the Jaffarian Award?

Nicolette Vaillancourt: The second graders of Jefferson Elementary school participated in the Elmhurst History project which engaged them in the study of their hometown and how it has changed over time. This project was done collaboratively with the second grade teachers who started the study of various landmarks in the classroom. Further in-depth research was carried out in the library where teams of students worked to identify and record five important facts about a landmark, and then were challenged to create a mural depicting that landmark. The murals were displayed in a mini-museum gallery for our Open House at which the students acted as “docents.” Photos were taken of the murals and used to create a photo story which the students narrated. Finally, this podcast was posted on our library website and played for all of the second grades.

I decided to apply for the Jaffarian award first, because the program seemed to meet many of the criteria of the grant, and second, because the program benefited the students in so many positive ways that I thought it was worthwhile sharing.

PL: What were some challenges that you encountered during your library’s humanities program? How did you overcome them?

NV: One of the challenges I faced in teaching the research part of this program was determining how to teach second graders the use of the cross-referencing in our main resource, Treasures of Elmhurst History. Another challenge was keeping the students to a schedule in order to finish the murals in time for our Open House. A personal challenge was figuring out how to format the podcast so that it could be posted to our library website.

PL: What do you think set your program apart from all the other 2010 Jaffarian applicants?

NV: Since I haven’t seen the other Jaffarian applications, I can only guess at what may have set our project apart from the others. Perhaps our project integrated more of the elements that met the grant’s criteria. We had teamwork, fact finding, community explorations, technology integration, teacher collaboration, multi-disciplines (language arts, research, art, and speech), an in-depth study over an extended time period, and higher level thinking (analysis, synthesis, evaluation).

PL: How does your school library plan to use the $4,000 award?

NV: We will use some of the grant monies to purchase books—both fiction and nonfiction—but we will also purchase some additional shelving that we badly need, a book truck, flip cameras, and a rug for our story time area.

PL: Do you have any advice for prospective Jaffarian Award applicants?

NV: What advice can I offer future Jaffarian applicants? I am not a trained grant writer—far from it. When I started writing this grant, I felt somewhat inadequate, so I went to my principal and confided my misgivings. She gave me advice that I found especially helpful; she said that she had learned in writing a grant to address every criteria point and to organize the information so that each point was readily accessible for the grant readers. I followed her advice and owe her a “big thank you!”

Teen bands across the country are invited to step onto the stage to compete in SchoolJam USA. This national, one-of-a-kind, teen battle-of-the-bands competition is accepting applications from middle and high school students aiming to showcase their talent and bolster much-needed support for school music programs.

Teen musicians between the ages of thirteen and nineteen who currently are enrolled in a middle or high school or in a homeschool program in the United States and are in a band that has never been signed to a record label are eligible to compete. Bands may perform any genre of music as long as the music is original or falls under public domain. Entries can be submitted online until October 15, 2010, at SchoolJam USA’s website.

On November 1, 2010, semi-finalist bands will be posted on the SchoolJam USA Web site, where visitors can vote for their favorite band until December 5, 2010. On January 14–15, 2011, the top ten finalists will battle it out at the SchoolJam USA finals at the National Association of Music Merchants (NAMM) Show in Anaheim, California. The top ten bands’ schools each will receive funding to support their respective music programs. The first-place band will receive a trip to perform at the SchoolJam Germany live finals in Frankfurt, Germany, in spring 2011.

SchoolJam USA is based on the SchoolJam program developed and initiated by MusikMedia LLC in Germany. The program was created to promote the use of popular music in the traditional school setting. NAMM brought the initiative to the United States in 2007 as a pilot program called SchoolJam Texas. The program was so successful in Texas that in 2009/2010 NAMM launched the first national SchoolJam USA battle of the bands. View photos from last year’s competition.