This year's grant will be used to create programs in which CSUN students will help to boost the language and literacy skills of ninth graders at Reseda High School and encourage good reading skills among local preschoolers.

"We are thrilled to have the opportunity to expand our work with the Starbucks Foundation. Their generosity has allowed CSUN service-learning students to use what they are learning in the classroom to benefit the community," said Maureen Rubin, director of the Center for Community-Service Learning.

"This grant," she said, "will help address an urgent community need for college students to become actively involved in the education of young people who will unquestionably relate to them not only as tutors, but as role models and perhaps even friends."

In the first part of the project, "The Language of Hope," CSUN students enrolled in Janet Cross' freshman composition class will become tutors/mentors to ninth graders at Reseda High who are having difficulty with literacy and language arts skills. The CSUN students will work with 50 to 60 youngsters who scored in the lower quarter on the Stanford 9 standardized test. In addition to an hour of in-person tutoring each week, the CSUN students will create an aggressive online writing program that will include nightly homework help.

In the second part of the project, CSUN students enrolled in Jackie Stallcup's "Children's Literature" class and Joan Theurer's "Teaching Reading in Elementary School" class will create a Starbucks Saturday Storytime program for local preschoolers.

For 10 weeks beginning Feb. 17, CSUN students will read to children, do crafts, sing songs and present theatre. Reseda High students in the "Language of Hope" program will serve as teachers' aides. Starbucks' employees also will read to the children and plan additional activities during the Saturday story hours.

"We hope the kids at Reseda High will bring their brothers and sisters and neighbors to participate and listen to some great books read aloud," Stallcup said. "Exposure to literature at an early age is a great indicator of future school success."

The Starbucks Saturday Storytime will take place from 9 a.m. to noon at the store at 10325 Reseda Blvd., in the Vons' Shopping Center at the corner of Reseda and Devonshire Street in Northridge.

"The Starbucks Foundation and our local store are committed to helping children in our community with literacy," said Kimberly Kelly, the Northridge Starbucks manager. "This is a great project and our employees are really excited to work with the kids each week."

Rubin said the Starbucks Foundation grant will not only help the ninth graders and preschoolers, but it should also strengthen the reading and writing skills of CSUN freshmen.

"Students must learn before they can teach," she said. "When they are given responsibility for helping others, they take their own studies more seriously. That's why service-learning works."

Launched in 1998, CSUN's Center for Community-Service Learning aims to inspire, encourage and support students and faculty in their pursuit of academic excellence through involvement in meaningful community service.

California State University, Northridge has more than 29,000 full-time and part-time students and offers 48 bachelors' and 39 masters' degrees. Founded in 1958, it is the only four-year university in the San Fernando Valley.