Charleston hits the books with ‘Festival de Lectura’

The Charleston RiverDogs’ “Festival de Lectura” reading program has taken on new life since its advent in 2019.

The program began as part of the club’s community outreach efforts for Copa de la Diversión, a league-wide initiative sponsored by Nationwide. The success of Copa nationally is tied directly to programs like Festival de Lectura experiencing their own levels of growth and making an impact.

This season, Single-A Charleston, operating under their Perros Santos identity, has expanded its Copa outreach program into a larger, three-part series that includes participation from some of the club’s Spanish-speaking players each step of the way.

“Just trying to make it bigger and better every year is that goal for us,” said Haley Diess, the RiverDogs’ community relations manager. “I think we definitely did that this year. … Being out in the community, communicating with the [school] teachers – their buy-in to the program was a huge part of what made it a success.”

Beginning with the Festival de Lectura, the events were designed to incentivize and strengthen literacy for bilingual or Spanish-speaking students in the Berkeley County area. In addition to the Festival de Lectura, which ran from the beginning of April to the end of May, the club also hosted a baseball and softball clinic on June 8. For the final event, bilingual RiverDogs’ players will be reading to children at a local library.

The Festival de Lectura challenges students to reach certain reading goals, which vary based on age, for books in both Spanish and English.

The nearly 400 students who finished the reading program were surprised at their school by a visit from players and Charleston’s mascot, Charlie T. RiverDog.

The club also awarded the bookworms with tickets to the club’s Perros Santos game on May 26 at Joseph P. Riley, Jr. Park., and the top readers from each school were able to join players on the field for the national anthem.

The baseball and softball clinic included nearly 200 children between the ages of 6 and 14. It was labeled a bilingual clinic to encourage participation from those families who might be apprehensive about attending because of a potential language barrier.

RiverDogs players served as instructors, putting the participants through hitting, pitching, infield and outfield drills.

“It was a great way to bring the community together and get those kids, especially, who haven't played before, a free opportunity to learn,” Diess said.

The final reading event stretches across two dates, scheduled for July 24 and Aug. 7 at the Johns Island Library, and the club expects to have around 75 kids at each date.