From Cooking Up Literacy to Planet Word: Designing Literacy That Endures

During the Heritage Chocolate Society (HCS) 2026 gathering, I had the opportunity to visit Planet Word and hear from its founder, Ann Friedman.

Planet Word stands as evidence of what happens when a literacy vision is clear, strategic, and sustained. Words were not treated as enrichment. They were treated as civic infrastructure.

Just days earlier, families in Pleasant Hill gathered for a Cooking Up Literacy experience. Students read recipes aloud, moved through hands-on literacy stations, made decisions together, and led their families in preparing a parfait — demonstrating how literacy deepens when it is embodied, conversational, and communal. It was joyful — and intentionally structured.

What struck me most at Planet Word was not simply inspiration, but alignment.

When participation includes visible progression, shared leadership, and defined roles, engagement moves beyond attendance. It becomes ownership. And ownership is what sustains institutions.

The opportunity is not to replicate an event inside a museum. It is to design structured literacy pathways that allow families to move from visitor to participant to contributor — within immersive spaces like Planet Word and beyond.

Sustainable civic learning is built at the intersection of vision, architecture, and partnership.

That is the work ahead.

— Dr. Daneell Moore