We all know that access to books plays a crucial role in a child's reading frequency. This past year, we saw amazing efforts -- from kids, adults, large foundations, governor's spouses, and more -- to get books in to the hands of kids. Here are some of our favorite "give back" stories:
1. The “Scholastic Santa” gives back to local elementary school students:
Last year, one of Rachel Kyncl’s students brought change to school for a week to save up for a book from a Scholastic Reading Club flyer. When his savings efforts came up short, the Benton Harbor, MI elementary school teacher spurred a wave of support by mentioning the student’s efforts on her Instagram page. A friend of Kyncl’s remembered the Instagram post and just recently purchased an entire Scholastic wishlist of books for Kyncl’s class.
The generosity took off, thanks to social media. Rachel shared the story of her “Scholastic Santa” on Facebook, and donations have poured in to other teachers who shared her post. Rachel has even received anonymous letters of support with donations for her students.
2.Reading Ambassadors join the Scholastic Summer Reading Challenge and give back to schools:
This year's Scholastic Summer Reading Challenge was the most successful yet—and we couldn't have done it without the help of the Governors and Governors' Spouses, 46 of whom signed on as "Reading Ambassadors" to help promote the importance of summer reading in their states.
For the sixth year in a row, Scholastic donated 500 books to the elementary school of each Reading Ambassador's choice – a total of more than 23,000 books! Many of the Ambassadors also hosted a summer reading event for kids at local elementary schools at the beginning of the summer and visited the school in their state that logged the most summer reading minutes in the fall.
This past November, as part of their yearly volunteer project, the Scholastic Family and Community Engagement team traveled to Los Angeles, CA to host a Literacy Events day for 21 families of Braddock Elementary. During the event, 12 Scholastic employees (and Clifford the Big Red Dog!) spent the day reading to children, engaging students in literacy activities and providing parents with materials and ideas on how to support literacy at home. Each student left the Literacy Event with a gift bag of age-appropriate books and activities
4. Russell’s Reading Room: Russell Westbrook’s Why Not? Foundation gives back to local students:
Oklahoma City Thunder’s Russell Westbrook opened his first “Russell’s Reading Room” at North Highland Elementary, which is filled with 1,200 books for children in Kindergarten through grade 5.This Reading Room is just the first – with more to come – as Westbrook is projected to launch two more Russell’s Reading Rooms within a year’s time. Westbrook and his Why Not? Foundation have challenged over 75,000 students of the 147 metro Oklahoma City schools to read a combined 100,000 minutes.
Russell’s Reading Challenge is part of Scholastic’s national “Read 100,000” nationwide program that encourages students to read and log 100,000 minutes as part of a school team. Each child received a $5.00 reading certificate to use at the Scholastic Book Fair that day.
One hundred thousand new children’s books from The Scholastic Possible Fund will be donated to children in need this holiday season through three non-profit organizations that work to improve global literacy: Toys4Tots, Save the Children and Room to Read. The donation was made together with Usher and his New Look Foundation. Usher recently joined with Scholastic to launch the new “Open the World of Possible” initiative, designed to elevate the importance and joy of reading for all children. Students were asked to learn about three leading non-profit organizations and vote for the organization(s) they’d like to receive a donation of books. Each organization is receiving a portion of the donation from The Scholastic Possible Fund based on the students’ votes.
Scholastic reinforced its commitment to early childhood education by announcing in-kind donations of more than $1 million worth of books from The Scholastic Possible Fund, as well as professional learning opportunities for the awardees of the Preschool Development Grants and Early Head Start Partnership Grants presented by President Obama at the White House Summit on Early Education.
Scholastic will donate a pre-K classroom library, consisting of 300 board books for ages 0 to 3 to every Early Head Start Child Care Partnership awardee. Approximately 300 early childhood centers will receive a total of 90,000 books from The Scholastic Possible Fund through this commitment. Scholastic will also provide professional learning opportunities for awardees of the Preschool Development Grants and Early Head Start Partnership Grants.
7. Third-grader gives back to local hospital:
Eight-year old Aiden Fouhy lives in Peerless, MT. This year he impressively raised and sold bottle caps which earned him more than one thousand dollars. Aiden told local NBC station KULR that he thought he “might be a bit too young for all this money” and decided to give some away in the form of book donations to St. Vincent Healthcare pediatric unit in the local hospital.
Aiden ordered 76 books for kids of all ages through Scholastic Reading Clubs. He even bought some books with accompanying CDs and a CD player, just in case some children didn’t feel healthy enough to read on their own. He also designed a sticker to put in each book with a personal message that read, "I hope you like this book and it helps you feel better. From a third grade boy in a small town in Montana. I hope this book blesses your day."
You can watch a video news report featuring Aiden at KULR’s website and check out an album of photos of Aiden and the books at St. Vincent Healthcare’s Facebook page.
photo via
