Groundbreaking News for Community Reading Buddies
October 12, 2021
245,000
That’s the number of Bay Area K-3rd graders who are now behind grade level in literacy after Covid. Studies show if those students don’t catch up by 3rd grade, they’ll already be four times as likely not to graduate high school.
The educational need is unprecedented.
At the same time, our capacity to meet that need is dramatically increasing.
Since its founding by a local schoolteacher in 1994, Community Reading Buddies (CRB) has paired committed, local teenagers with young readers to mentor them in literacy and ignite them with a passion for reading. Immediately when Covid hit, CRB partnered with an award-winning digital literacy platform and year-round for the first time in the program's history. The result? Young readers doubled their pace of literacy growth while with us.
The community has taken notice.
Not only was CRB featured on the news last month, but when the renowned Impact 100 East Bay women's consortium looked at 211 organizations but could only choose one program to support with their featured six-figure grant, they chose....
Community Reading Buddies!
As a result, this year we'll be tripling the size of the program - to reach 1,200 students. The need is increasing. But so is our capacity to meet that need. In fact, we're on the edge of exponential growth.
We have the young readers.
We have the mentors.
But don't believe us: hear it from the students themselves in the video.
And the best part is YOU can join us in this story.
Every $300 empowers a pair of students together, by far the most cost-effective early literacy solution in the Bay Area. You can empower a pair by donating in the form below or by sharing the news with those who can.
Much love and gratitude,
Drew Sokol, Executive Director