Here at Scholastic, we strive to enrich the lives of children by bringing them the joy of reading.
As we all found our lives disrupted and changed by the pandemic, we continued to work hard to reach young readers and increase book access during this critical time. We’re proud to have been able to participate in a number of opportunities over the course of the year to ensure that reading remains a priority for children.
Take a look at some of our key efforts to get books and important materials into the hands of kids in 2020!
Scholastic Summer Read-a-Palooza
As part of the Scholastic Summer Read-a-Palooza, our educational and philanthropic program, kids unlocked a donation of 100,000 print books! They achieved the incredible goal this summer by starting and keeping Reading Streaks™ in Scholastic Home Base, our free, digital community for kids. Through a collaboration with United Way Worldwide, the books were distributed to 38 areas across the United States to children with limited or no access to books.
THE FINAL DONATION: UNLOCKED
— Scholastic (@Scholastic) July 8, 2020
Congratulations to all the readers who have been keeping their Reading Streaks to help unlock the final book donation milestone of 100K books in the Scholastic Summer #ReadAPalooza! pic.twitter.com/cHAJTnkHg5
Scholastic Book Clubs Patterson Partnership
Now in its sixth annual installment, the partnership from author James Patterson and Scholastic Book Clubs awarded 5,000 teachers throughout the United States grants of $500 and 500 Scholastic Book Clubs Bonus Points this year. The 2020 grant was designed to equip teachers with books and other resources to help them face the unprecedented challenges of teaching during the pandemic.
The Masks for Kids Initiative
Scholastic teamed up with clothing retailer BELLA+CANVAS, tennis player and philanthropist Serena Williams, and the National School Boards Association to donate 4.25 million face masks and CDC-approved educational resources to 115,000 schools in the United States. The resources teach students about the importance of wearing masks, social distancing, preventing the spread of the coronavirus, and more.
Anniversary Celebrations with Room to Read
In honor of our longstanding collaboration with Room to Read, the literacy nonprofit’s 20th anniversary, and Scholastic’s 100th anniversary, the Scholastic Asia team donated 120,000 children's books to school libraries in Sri Lanka. To date, Scholastic has provided more than 1.7 million books to the organization.
A Donation Surprise on The Kelly Clarkson Show
In a special segment last October, The Kelly Clarkson Show spotlighted the story of 7-year-old Addi Byrd, who was born 29 weeks premature and spent two months in the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU). Her mother read books aloud to her every day during this challenging time, instilling a love of reading early on. Now a healthy young girl, Addi works with her mother to donate books to babies in the NICU every year on her birthday. The show exclusively announced that in honor of Addi’s project and Scholastic’s centennial milestone, we donated 5,000 books to the NICU at Good Samaritan Hospital in Cincinnati, OH.
