Raising a Reader Executive Director Suzanne Wheeler-Del Piccolo knows the best way to promote children’s art and literacy: host a free, bilingual festival, offer activities and crafts, and send each child home with a complimentary book. 

She also knows her audience — Wheeler-Del Piccolo has been the executive director at Raising a Reader for three years, and prior to that, was the principal at Basalt Elementary School for 22 years. 

“I love the mission of our work. I’m a long-time educator. I know how to teach a child to read. I’ve taught many, many children to read in my career,” she said. “…If kids learn to love to read with somebody they love, when they get to school, they’re excited to read because they have all these wonderful experiences in reading at home with their families.”

This weekend, Raising a Reader Aspen to Parachute, an early childhood literacy nonprofit, will celebrate its 20th anniversary with the third annual free Children’s Arts and Literacy Festival in Glenwood Springs.

“It’s an outreach event for the community that really focuses on celebrating arts and literacy in our region,” Wheeler-Del Piccolo said about the inspiration for the event. “It was just through a process of trying to come up with something that really aligned with our mission and who we are and what we’re trying to do. And this was the outcome: a really fun arts and literacy celebration.”

The festival is from 2-5 p.m. on Oct. 12 at the Glenwood Springs Branch Library, 815 Cooper Ave. Activities include storytelling, arts and crafts and music exploration and multiple art organizations, authors and a magician will be featured. Although the event is geared towards children up to 8 years old, all are welcome.

“Most of us find what our passions are or what we want to be in life because we found a book at some point in childhood,” Alex Garcia Bernal, Garfield County Public Library education and events manager, said. “That’s why having these kind of events is important to a library, because we bring hundreds of people in who are going to, number one, have a really good memory of them in a library, and number two, they get to step into the library, and maybe in that crowd, there’s 10 kids who find their passion because of a book they found because they came to an event.”

Local children’s authors Alice Feagan and Deb Williams and New York author and illustrator Suzanne Bloom, author of “Gus the Bus,” will read their books during the event. Over a dozen organizations, including Rocky Mountain PBS, Imagination Library of Colorado, Carbondale Arts, TACAW (The Arts Campus At Willits), and Aspen Music Festival, are also participating in the festivities on Saturday.

Wheeler-Del Piccolo says the festival takes about eight months to organize. “I put all this effort into it, and then when the children and families come, it’s just so much fun to watch them so engaged with arts and literacy events and activities and hands on things,” she said. “It’s just fun, and everybody’s happy and kids are excited and the parents are really engaged with their kids.”

Children can craft in the Rosybelle mobile makerspace, ride a fire truck and try their hand at different instruments at the musical instrument “petting zoo,” provided by Aspen Music Festival. 

Each child will receive a complimentary book bag and book and swag from booths of participating organizations. 

“I think it speaks highly of what a large priority it is in our region, because so many people are willing to step up and make this happen,” Wheeler-Del Piccolo said. “I hope (the community) sees that…that a children’s arts and literacy festival that is bilingual, that is very much a coming together of so many organizations to put it on, is a great thing to do and a big priority for all of us.”