Delray Beach’s team wore pirate costumes during its presentation as the city earned an All-America City award
for the third time. From left are Mayor Cary Glickstein, Education Coordinator Janet Meeks and Joe Gillie,
retired president of the city’s Old School Square complex.
Photo provided
By Jane Smith
The Delray Beach trio came to the All-America City convention with data to show the city had improved grade-level reading and reduced chronic absenteeism among kindergartners through third graders in its public schools.
But what made Delray’s presentation stand out from those of the 26 other finalists at the Denver convention was the pirate skit — performed in costume.
Delray Beach won the award from the National Civic League for the third time. It recognizes the best in civic innovation.
Education Coordinator Janet Meeks, Mayor Cary Glickstein and veteran performer Joe Gillie — the retired president of the Old School Square complex — represented Delray Beach at the mid-June convention.
Meeks and Glickstein held up a treasure map while Gillie gave a dramatic reading of the journey the city made in reaching its grade-level reading goal. They wore tricorne hats, eye patches with skull-and-crossbones logos and long-sleeved navy T-shirts, each with an All-America patch on the upper left chest.
“It was fun,” Meeks said. “We found gold through reading.”
No other groups wore costumes at the convention, she said.
The pirate skit was based on the Palm Beach County School District’s summer reading program, Meeks said. The district has four themes in this summer’s program, including one on pirates.
The push for the award started in 2012 when the city joined the Civic League’s campaign to improve third-grade level reading levels.
Delray Beach partnered with the school district to collect data for the city’s public schools from kindergarten through third grade.
“The whole community worked together, scaling and aligning resources,” Meeks said. “We started with $14,000 to $15,000 of seed money, and now we have $5 million in resources,” including 50,000 books, donated over five years.
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