Kansas City Mayor Sly James recently announced major new developments for his community reading initiative Turn the Page.

The mayor announced founding board members for a Turn the Page non-profit board. LINC founder Bert Berkley is one of the eight board members.

Other board members are: Tim Barton, CEO of FreightQuote; Sandra Lawrence, CFO of Children’s Mercy; Judy Heeter, president of Pathfinder Consulting; Carol Hallquist, president of Hallmark Corporate Foundation; Uzziel Pecina, assistant clinical professor of educational administration at UMKC; Donna Houpe, executive administrator of Harvest Church International Outreach; and Philip Hickman, principal at Genesis Promise Academy.

The mayor also announced a $40,000 grant from Cities of Services to support reading initiatives in four school districts - Kansas City, Park Hill, Center and Hickman Mills. The grant will recruit up to 500 literacy tutors to work with targeted first through third graders in the four school districts. 

The mayor also announced a $50,000 award from the AmeriCorps VISTA national service program to fund five VISTA volunteers. The VISTA volunteers are already working in the four school districts and have recruited nearly 150 volunteer literacy tutors.

Read Kansas City Star story about the annoucement.