Staff reports
DAYLO was recently honored with the Richard W. Riley Award for Human & Civil Rights, presented by the South Carolina Education Association, the Palmetto State’s affiliate of the National Education Association. SCEA’s mission is to be the leading advocate for quality public education in South Carolina.
Founded in 2021, DAYLO, or Diversity Awareness Youth Literacy Organization, is a student-led book club and community literacy service group fostering empathy and understanding through the power of story, with a growing number of chapters across South Carolina.
Named for former South Carolina governor and U.S. Secretary of Education Richard W. Riley, this award recognizes student achievements and leadership on campus and in the community which enhance the sense of worth and dignity of others by promoting an appreciation for diversity, opposing prejudice, and working to improve the conditions and self-esteem of minorities and the disadvantaged.
The award was accepted on behalf of DAYLO’s many student members and advisors by Millie Bennett and Madelyn Confare (past leaders of the Beaufort High School chapter), E. Achurch (founding president of the Complete Student chapter), and Mickie Thompson (founding president of the USC Beaufort chapter), accompanied by DAYLO’s mentors Claire Bennett and Jonathan Haupt.
In accepting the award, Millie Bennett said, “To be recognized with an SCEA Human & Civil Rights Award for our efforts as pro-literacy advocates is especially meaningful, and even more so to be honored with the Richard W. Riley Award. We believe, as Mr. Riley said as U.S. Secretary of Education, that every time a student’s imagination is sparked by the transformative power of language, story, and the arts, our nation gets a little stronger. Defending students’ rights to read and educators’ rights to teach is vital to making certain that we continue to have access to the stories and histories which inspire, empower, and educate all of us.”
DAYLO was first established at Beaufort High in 2021 by Holland Perryman, then a high school junior, inspired by literary and social justice community programs she experienced as an intern of the nonprofit Pat Conroy Literary Center. (In a serendipitous connection to the legacy of one of Conroy’s own mentors from Beaufort High, in 2004 Gene Norris was honored with the Richard W. Riley Award of the South Carolina Council of Teachers of English for his lifelong service to public education.)
During the 2022-2023 school year, six DAYLO students from Beaufort High, Beaufort Academy, and Battery Creek High spoke out in public comments at Beaufort County School Board meetings in response to challenges against 97 books in district school libraries. The inspiring advocacy of DAYLO students led to additional opportunities regionally and nationally, and has since empowered the creation of new DAYLO chapters across South Carolina.
In addition to being on-campus book clubs, locally, current DAYLO student leaders and members enhance community literacy efforts through community read-alouds at the Port Royal Farmers Market on the first Saturday of each month, by stocking dozens of little free libraries across the community with inclusive books for all ages, by decorating and donating little library book boxes for local laundromats and a food pantry, by facilitating the annual Beaufort Human Library, and by collaborating with the Conroy Center to host local and visiting authors at public events like the Lowcountry Children’s Book Fair and the Lowcountry Book Club Convention.
DAYLO’s student-led pro-literacy efforts have been profiled nationally on Nick News and in Education Week, Book Riot, Publishers Weekly, and School Library Journal, and regionally as front-page news stories in the Charleston Post and Courier and The Island News. DAYLO students have spoken at the annual conferences of the American Library Association, South Carolina Association of School Librarians, South Carolina Council of the Teachers of English, and Palmetto State Literacy Association, as well as in virtual events hosted by the American Library Association, the Children’s Book Council, the Kids Right to Read Network of the National Coalition Against Censorship, and (later this month) EveryLibrary’s Library Advocacy and Funding Conference. Early this year, DAYLO was also awarded a national commendation from the American Association of School Librarians.
To learn more about DAYLO’s pro-literacy community service outreach and continued advocacy for the right to read freely, please follow DAYLO on Instagram at www.instagram.com/daylo_reads or Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/DAYLO.reads.
