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Children’s Book Festival of Johnstown Named “Best of the Best” by PA Council on Arts

Posted on April 29, 2014

Johnstown, PA (April 29, 2014)The Learning Lamp’s Children’s Book Festival of Johnstown has been named one of the best arts projects across the state by the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts (PCA). At a news conference in Harrisburg Tuesday, PCA Executive Director Phillip Horn recognized 13 organizations whose arts-related projects were selected from hundreds of Pennsylvania Partners in the Arts Projects statewide. The Children’s Book Festival was among the top four finalists.

“I am delighted to recognize these organizations. This is the first year the Council has selected the most outstanding PPA Projects to represent the talent, achievements and contributions of the arts to the life of the Commonwealth,” said Horn. “The selection of the ‘Best of the Best’ provides recognition for the important role of arts support provided by state government.”

Pennsylvania Partners in the Arts (PPA) is the Arts Council’s regional re-granting program. It engages 13 regional partners to promote and review applications and award small grants to a wide variety of local and community arts programs and projects. The Learning Lamp’s Children’s Book Festival has been a recipient of PPA funding through the Pennsylvania Rural Arts Alliance since 2010.

“We value the support of the PA Rural Arts Alliance and the opportunity the Pennsylvania Partners in the Arts program has provided The Learning Lamp to promote reading and children’s literature,” said Leah Spangler, executive director of The Learning Lamp. “With each passing year, we have been able to attract a higher caliber of authors and illustrators to Johnstown to help bring books alive for children and enable them to experience the arts in a very interactive and personal way.”

It was The Learning Lamp’s 5th annual Children’s Book Festival that earned the PCA honor. The festival featured New York Times bestselling author/illustrator Nick Bruel, PA First Book author/illustrator Suzanne Bloom and master storyteller Charlotte Blake Alston.

The free, three-day event, which aims to spark a love of reading in children and provide families with access to free, used and new books, touched about 5,000 children and adults. That included pre-festival school visits with hundreds of children in a three-county area.

The 2014 festival, which was held earlier this month, reached similar numbers with guest authors that included Gail Carson Levine, Debbie Dadey and author/illustrator James Warhola. Planning is already underway for the 7th Annual Children’s Book Festival set for April 3-5, 2015 at Bottleworks and Artworks on 3rd Avenue.

PCA is a state agency under the Office of the Governor, whose mission it is to foster the excellence, diversity and vitality of the arts in Pennsylvania, and to broaden the availability and appreciation of those arts throughout the state. The council formed the Pennsylvania Partners in the Arts in 1997, to expand the availability of state arts dollars and encourage and support local decision-making.

For more information on PCA, visit pacouncilonthearts.org. To learn more about The Learning Lamp, call 814-262-0732.


The Learning Lamp is a nonprofit organization with a mission to engage all children in the support they need to succeed. We deliver high quality programs that are affordable and accessible to families of all income levels. The Learning Lamp served 18,468 children from 70 school districts and 36 non-public and private schools and other organizations in 32 Pennsylvania counties in 2013.

Our programs include: one-to-one tutoring; before/after school programs; portable classrooms aimed at building math and science skills; alternative education programs for at-risk students; evidence-based prevention programs; online learning and credit recovery; SAT preparation; educationally-focused child care; literacy-based preschool programs; and grant writing and project consulting for schools.

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