DAYLO Honored with Richard W. Riley Award
Founded in Beaufort in 2021, DAYLO, or the 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.
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.
Named for former South Carolina governor and U.S. Secretary of Education Richard W. Riley, this award recognizes student leadership on campus and in the community which enhances 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.”
DAYLO was founded by student Holland Perryman, then a Beaufort High junior, inspired by literary and social justice programs she experienced as an intern of the nonprofit Pat Conroy Literary Center. In a serendipitous connection to the legacy of one of Pat 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.
In addition to the on-campus book clubs, current DAYLO student leaders and members enhance local literacy through community read-alouds at the Port Royal Farmers Market on first Saturdays, by stocking dozens of little free libraries with inclusive books for all ages, by decorating and donating little library book boxes for laundromats and a food pantry, by facilitating the annual Beaufort Human Library, and by collaborating with the Conroy Center to host authors at public events like the Lowcountry Children’s Book Fair and the Lowcountry Book Club Convention.
DAYLO has been profiled nationally on Nick News and in Education Week, Book Riot, Publishers Weekly, and School Library Journal, and regionally in Beaufort Lifestyle, the Island News, the Charleston Post and Courier, and South Carolina Voyager. Early this year, DAYLO was also awarded a national commendation from the American Association of School Librarians. To learn more, please follow DAYLO on Instagram or Facebook.
