LAFAYETTE, La. – In the spirit of the holiday season, Barnes & Noble is hosting its annual Holiday Book Drive to give the gift of literacy to the surrounding community.

The Barnes & Noble Holiday Book Drive is an annual program that provides customers with the opportunity to purchase a book for donation and give it to a child in the community.

The 2009 book drive begins Sunday, November 1 and runs through Friday, January 1, 2010.

Each year, Barnes & Noble selects a local non-profit organization to distribute the books directly to the children. The Picard Center for Child Development and Lifelong Learning at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette is the recipient organization for this year’s Holiday Book Drive

LAFAYETTE, La. – Martha Bryant has always been considered a woman of excellence by her employer. Yet a highly regarded community organization formally bestowed that title to her as one of its 2009 Women of Excellence.

Martha Guidry Bryant, Acting Project Director at the Cecil J. Picard Center for Child Development and Lifelong Learning at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette, was nominated by former colleague Dean Frost for her 38-year span of professional and community outreach efforts.

LAFAYETTE, La. – More than 25 friends, family members and staff of the Cecil J. Picard Center for Child Development and Lifelong Learning laced up their shoes and participated in the Walk to Defeat ALS on Saturday, Oct. 3 to publicly honor former State Superintendent of Education, Cecil Picard. Picard was diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), or Lou Gehrig's disease, in May 2005 and aggressively battled the disease until his death from complications in February 2007.

Donning baseball t-shirts and forming Team Picard, staff members and supporters raised money for the Louisiana Chapter of the ALS Association and walked in the 1.25-mile fundraiser around Girard Park.

Several schools systems are starting the school year with a new plan for the health of their students.

The Coordinated School Health initiative is a model developed by the national Center for Disease Control to improve children’s health by bringing together schools, public health agencies, families and community leaders and integrating various strategies where kids spend most of their time – in schools.

To create their strategic health plans, the school systems first partnered with the Picard Center for Child Development and Lifelong Learning to gather data and determine strengths and weaknesses surrounding six overarching issues: alcohol and drugs, obesity, school readiness, behavior, attendance and truancy, and student health services. From the data analysis, each school district chose two areas of focus and created action plans to address the issues.

NEW YORK CITY – New research has shown that across Louisiana, families need well above the federal minimum wage of $7.25 in order to make ends meet.

The basic cost of living for a family of four in Orleans Parish is $44,184 annually. This budget includes only the most basic living expenses such as rent, food, child care, health insurance, out-of-pocket medical needs, transportation, and taxes. Still, it translates to both parents working full-time at $11 per hour. In Jefferson Parish, a family of four needs $50,242, or $12 per hour, per parent, while in Acadia Parish, the same family needs to earn $36,310, or $9 per hour, per parent. And single parents must earn far higher wages to provide for themselves and their children.

Columbia University’s National Center for Children in Poverty (NCCP) has used interactive data tools to generate customized information on family budgets for several Louisiana parishes since 2007. This year, NCCP researchers collaborated with the Cecil J. Picard Center for Child Development and Lifelong Learning at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette to update and expand existing data tools. The collaboration has made it possible to create custom results for each of Louisiana’s 64 parishes.

LAFAYETTE, La. – A University of Louisiana at Lafayette research center recently turned to familiar subjects for a project on healthier living. Snapping on pedometers, staff members from the Picard Center for Child Development and Lifelong Learning conducted an evaluation on themselves and walked before, during and after work hours to increase awareness of the roles physical and mental health play in the quality and productivity of life.

BATON ROUGE – The Louisiana Workforce Commission (LWC) has contracted with the University of Louisiana at Lafayette’s Research Consortium to develop a method and the tools for providing enhanced information on workforce demand and projected supply to help build and manage a more responsive workforce delivery system.