As National Reading Month winds down, two community groups in Campbell will continue to promote literacy all year long.

Members of the Campbell United Methodist Church and Assistance League of Los Gatos-Saratoga devote time to promote early literacy to students within the Campbell Union School District. They read with elementary school students and work to encourage a love of reading and assist with building literacy skills in and outside a student’s classroom.

A little more than a year old, the church’s program has helped kindergartners and fourth-graders at Rosemary Elementary School. The program originated with church member Brook Hendershot, who expressed an interest in starting a volunteer reading program. Pastor Kathi McShane said it started with about 25 readers heading out to the school.

Twice a week, students sit after school with adult volunteers, many of whom are retired teachers. McShane said teachers identify students who could use assistance with their reading skills and comprehension.

Rosemary Elementary was chosen since the church isn’t far from the school.

“It is our closest neighborhood school, and there’s lots of need there,” McShane said, adding that church members have also built and donated bikes during the holiday season and installed “little libraries,” wooden cabinets in the neighborhood where people can leave and borrow books.

McShane said the program has also helped foster relationships between students and the community.

“We keep the same partnership through the semester and through the whole school year, even,” McShane said. “It’s really about having another adult relationship installed in each child’s life, knowing that there’s somebody who’s going to show up again in the week interested in who they are and how they’re developing, and all kinds of lovely conversations happen during that time.”

Residents who aren’t parishioners can be volunteers, she added.

Meanwhile, the nonprofit Assistance League of Los Gatos-Saratoga assisted 975 students in 37 primary grade classrooms during the last fiscal year, according to the league’s marketing chair Judy Levin.

The league and the school district have worked together for 15 years encouraging literacy among students and their families.

Thirty-five kindergartners and first-graders were tutored through the league’s Literacy Plus Program last year. The schools district’s Rising Young Authors Award, a writing program, is cosponsored by the league. Student winners are given gift cards to purchase books.

Dictionaries are also distributed annually. In November 1,173 dictionaries in English and Spanish were given to third-graders in nine schools within the district. Students were taught how to use them.

“We have a great group of people who want to help students succeed and know the importance of early literacy,” Levin said.

The league also donates jackets to students and provides scholarships for fifth- and sixth-graders to attend science camp.

The league also serves families and seniors within San Jose, Campbell, Saratoga and Los Gatos.