Presenter: Name: Claire Bennett

Title: Advisor to DAYLO
Organization/School: DAYLO, the Diversity Awareness Youth Literacy Organization

Program Description
Founded in 2021 by a high school junior, DAYLO (Diversity Awareness Youth Literacy Organization) has become a nationally recognized model for youth-led advocacy in response to education censorship. DAYLO has been featured in Education Week, Book Riot, School Library Journal, and Publishers Weekly, as well as on Nick News, and in the feature length documentary Banned Together. Twenty DAYLO students and mentors also developed the youth advocacy toolkit for the national online resources of READCON and Get Ready, Stay Ready.

This program serves as an instructive overview of how DAYLO functions as an on-campus diversity-themed book club, an off-campus community literacy service club; and a pro-literacy youth advocacy group.

DAYLO was created in the wake of the death of George Floyd and the rise of the Black Lives Matter movement, as DAYLO’s then-16-year-old founder Holland Perryman felt compelled to do something to promote diversity and encourage empathy at her high school in Beaufort, South Carolina. At the time that Holland started DAYLO, there were no attempts at censorship in her community, so DAYLO focused on reading and discussing diverse books and promoting literacy among the younger student population in Beaufort. That all changed in the fall of 2023 when 2 complainants challenged 97 titles on school library shelves. In violation of district policy, all 97 titles were immediately removed from circulation. Beginning in January of 2023, six DAYLO students from three schools began speaking consistently at school board meetings to advocate for the return of the 97 books. The advocacy work of these students began to garner media attention, leading first to local front-page news stories and ultimately to national news coverage, including being interviewed by Scott Pelley of 60 Minutes as research for a segment about our community’s fight against censorship. The local challenge has ended in our community with 91 books returned to circulation, 5 banned for a period of 5 years, and 1 discovered to never have been in our school libraries, DAYLO students continue their advocacy work as the South Carolina Department of Education began removing books from school library shelves statewide after the implementation of State Regulation 43-170. (Eleven books have now been banned statewide in South Carolina; nine of them were previously challenged, reviewed, and returned in Beaufort County.)

Central to DAYLO’s success in combating censorship is our pro-literacy approach to advocacy, which could be replicated in schools and communities across the country. DAYLO believes that the best response to the subtractive nature of book bans and education censorship is to be additive: to augment the experiences of our students and our communities through an inviting and inclusively multi-faceted approach to the transformative power of stories.

In our model, youth-led reading and discussion of diverse literature is inherently an act of advocacy. DAYLO’s student book clubs and the empathy and understanding they inspire are the foundation for our robust calendar of community literacy engagements–including a monthly read-aloud (our Teddy Bear Picnic), readings in our Title 1 schools, year-round stocking of dozens of Little Free Libraries with diverse pro-literacy titles, our popular Beaufort Human Library project, and public event collaborations with like-minded literacy organizations which welcome diverse authors, books, and themes into our community, like the Lowcountry Children’s Book Fair, Lowcountry Book Club Convention, March Forth social justice-themed weekend, and the Pat Conroy Literary Festival.

Collectively, DAYLO’s positive on-campus presence as book clubs on 9 campuses and highly visible consistent community service presence collectively add credibility and credence to our youth advocacy experiences. Our administrators, our school board members, our community members, and (increasingly) our elected representatives know what DAYLO is and value the good work we do for our schools and our communities. And that familiarity and appreciation is then the basis for being not just heard but listened to when DAYLO stands up and speaks out against bans and censorship.

The positivity of DAYLO’s approach and presence has also made us good news stories for media coverage and welcome collaborators for national advocacy opportunities with PEN America, the National Coalition Against Censorship, Authors Against Book Bans, United Against Book Bans, and the American Library Association’s Banned Books Week.

In this session, we will highlight specific examples of DAYLO book club selections and discussions; representative community literacy service projects;, and both regional and national advocacy for the right to read freely–demonstrating how each aspect of DAYLO informs and empowers the other and how these approaches also can be adopted and adapted in service of other schools and communities as well.

Learning Objectives
1. To provide context about DAYLO by outlining the student-centric origin and history of the organization.

2. To explain the structure of DAYLO’s on campus book club including the following:
a. Student-led & mentor-advised philosophy
b. Book Club selection
c. Book Club discussion strategies
d. Potential for author engagement

3. To highlight DAYLO’s community service work and how that work supports the direct advocacy work:
a. What is a Teddy Bear Picnic read-aloud and how can I host one in my community?
b. How and why to volunteer for Family Literacy Nights at Title 1 schools.
c. What is the DAYLO Little Free Library project and how are the books sourced?
d. What is a Human Library? How can I host a Human Library in my community? How does a Human Library support the mission of DAYLO?

4. To demonstrate ways DAYLO students work as pro-literacy advocates:
a. Examples of student-led school board and legislative advocacy
b. How to help students utilize writing as advocacy
c. How to find local and national collaborations and how they can be beneficial to your student book club.

5. Conclusion and takeaways:
a. Explain the importance of being student-led and mentor-advised.
b. Explain the value in being pro-literacy instead of solely anti-censorship.
c. Highlight the ways that being inclusive of many forms of advocacy can increase student, advisor, and community involvement.

Program Outline
1. History of DAYLO
a. Student-led origin story, with cameos by Nic Stone and Disney Princess Anika Noni Rose
b. From one chapter in one high school to nine (and growing) across our state

2. DAYLO as a book club
a. Book club selections – representative selections and student responses
b. Author engagement – in-person and Zoom meet-ups, and how those have also benefited advocacy efforts: Jason Mott, Elana K. Arnold,
Raj Haldar, Amanda Jones, Kirsten Miller, David Levithan, Maggie Tokuda-Hall

3. DAYLO as a community service organization
a. Teddy Bear Picnic read-aloud events – being pro-literacy means being pro-community
b. Family Literacy Nights at Title 1 Schools – teens inspiring younger peers
c. Little Free Library project – book deserts, equitable access, sharing the joy of books
d. Human Library – where oral history meets speed dating to build empathy and community, on- and off-campus

4. DAYLO as pro-literacy advocates
a. School board and legislative advocacy – what happens when teens speak out (and then end up on Nick News and in a documentary film)
b. Writing as advocacy – op-eds, letters to the editor, letters and postcards of support to librarians and educators
c. Collaborations:
i. Local – League of Women Voters, book clubs, progressive community groups, bookstores and libraries
ii. National –Banned Books Week, PEN America, NCAC, Unite Against Book Bans

5. Conclusion and takeaways
a. How to DAYLO your way
b. DAYLO’s youth advocacy toolkits with READCON and Get Ready, Stay Ready
Meet DAYLO (Diversity Awareness Youth Literacy Organization): a diversity-themed high school book club that utilizes a pro-literacy approach to build community and protect the right to read.

Grade Level: 9-12

Session Strand: Leadership & Advocacy

Presenter
E Achurch

E Achurch (she/her) is junior at the Complete Student, a private school in Beaufort County, South Carolina, where she is founding president of her chapter of DAYLO: the Diversity Awareness Youth Literacy Organization. As a DAYLO leader, E has been interviewed about pro-literacy youth advocacy for features on the National Coalition Against Censorship blog and in Bold Journey magazine; and she has represented DAYLO in presentations and readings for EveryLibrary as well as numerous local and regional literary events. E is a graduate of the Beaufort Junior Leadership program, a counselor for the Pat Conroy Literary Center’s Camp Conroy summer writing and art program, and a past participant in the South Carolina Governor’s School for the Arts and Humanities summer program.

Brea Parker

Brea Parker (she/they) is a senior at Beaufort High School (Beaufort, South Carolina), where they are vice president of their school’s chapter of DAYLO: Diversity Awareness Youth Literacy Organization, a national organizer for Students Demand Action, a community service organizer for the USAF JROTC, and a member of the National Honor Society. A graduate of the Palmetto Girls State civic leadership program, Brea is also active in the Sea Island Sound marching and concert band and the USC Beaufort Children’s Theater. Brea has represented DAYLO at the New Voices New Rooms booksellers convention in Atlanta, where she was an opening keynote co-presenter, alongside bestselling banned authors Angie Thomas, Nic Stone, and Silas House, and National Education Association Student Activist of the Year (and fellow DAYLO leader) Kate Selvitelli.

Claire Bennett

Claire Bennett (she/her) is a co-mentor to the student leaders of DAYLO: Diversity Awareness Youth Literacy Organization. A former private school media center coordinator, Claire has been honored with the President's Award of the South Carolina Association of School Librarians. She has presented on DAYLO and youth advocacy in national live-streams for Banned Books Week and in person at regional and national librarian and bookseller conferences. A third-generation educator, Claire is also the mother of two DAYLO student leaders.

Jonathan Haupt

Jonathan Haupt (he/him) is the executive director of the nonprofit Pat Conroy Literary Center, the former director of the University of South Carolina Press, and a co-mentor to the student leaders of DAYLO: the Diversity Awareness Youth Literacy Organization. Jonathan is co-editor of Our Prince of Scribes: Writers Remember Pat Conroy (UGA Press), winner of 17 book awards. He is a frequent book reviewer for the Pulitzer Prize-winning Charleston Post & Courier, co-leader of the South Carolina chapter of Authors Against Book Bans, and past vice president of the Friends of South Carolina Libraries. Jonathan has been honored with the Doug Marlette Literacy Leadership Award and the President's Award of the South Carolina Association of School Librarians.


Description: DAYLO was founded as a diversity-themed high school book club and community literacy outreach organization in 2021. This foundation empowered DAYLO to successfully advocate for intellectual and academic freedom at the local, state, and national levels–becoming nationally recognized for this work. DAYLO has since grown to include 9 chapters across the state. This program will demonstrate how school librarians can support and advise pro-literacy diversity-themed high school book clubs that can encourage students to advocate for themselves and their peers while also promoting empathy in their schools and communities. Student-led events like Teddy Bear Picnic read-alouds, community and school-based Human Libraries, and book club discussions that support the mission of community engagement and literacy promotion will be highlighted, as well as how those programs can support school board and legislative advocacy opportunities for students. DAYLO mentors and students will share success stories and toolkits.