Congratulations and thanks, to Dr. Dan Foster and the YMCA

by DonorsSupporters
Dr. Dan Foster of Charleston is winner of the 2018 Spirit of the Valley Award, given by the YMCA of Kanawha Valley.

Dr. Dan Foster of Charleston was recognized by the YMCA with the 2018 Spirit of the Valley Award for his four decades of work in health care and public service in the Kanawha Valley.

The award comes with a donation, made in the recipient’s name, to a non-profit organization chosen by the recipient. Dr. Foster chose Read Aloud West Virginia.

In his remarks at the award luncheon, Dr. Foster talked about his mother and how she shared her love of reading with him. He pointed out that both the YMCA and Read Aloud have an impact on the lives of children.

Read Aloud West Virginia seeks to improve West Virginia’s literacy rates and educational attainment by motivating children to WANT to read. Read Aloud’s research based programs — Volunteer Readers, Book Distribution, Public Education and Classroom Enrichment — put books in the hands and on the minds of West Virginia’s children.

The 501(c)(3) organization also raises community awareness regarding the importance of reading to children from infancy into adolescence and the value of providing children with a print-rich environment. During the past school year, Read Aloud distributed more than 8,300 books and placed 1,113 volunteers in over 1,652 classrooms across 30 counties in West Virginia.

These volunteers serve as live commercials for reading. The readers are also important role models who allow children to experience the joy of reading and, in so doing, motivate them to become proficient readers. Once equipped with this essential skill, students experience more success in all subject areas and are better prepared for a promising future. Students who develop good reading skills tend to go further in school, to have higher lifetime earnings and even to enjoy better health.

Read Aloud thanks the YMCA for recognizing Dr. Dan Foster’s service and commitment to the Kanawha Valley. The organization is tremendously grateful to be allowed to share in Dr. Foster’s honor as his non-profit designee. Recognition from those so dedicated and accomplished as Dr. Foster and the YMCA strengthens our own commitment to serving our mission in the Kanawha Valley.

Among the many congratulatory messages compiled for the booklet printed for the August award ceremony was this one from the John L. and Maude H. Dickinson Family:

“Thank you for making West Virginia your home and for making our community a better place to live.”

 

Image featuring the WV Neighborhood Investment Program (NIP) tax credits and people those credits have helped.

Read Aloud can offer WV NIP tax credits! Get ‘em while they last

by DonorsNewsSupporters

Read Aloud West Virginia can once again offer West Virginia Neighborhood Investment Program (NIP) tax credits to qualifying donors. The benefit reduces a donor’s state personal income tax bill or corporate net income tax bill by as much as half of the gift amount.

Donations of at least $500 qualify for the NIP credit and help us pursue our mission to motivate children across the state to want to read. With your help, we are changing the literacy climate in West Virginia.

Donations made by Dec. 31, 2018 can qualify for credits to apply to taxes due in 2019, but credits are limited and offered for as long as they are available.

The tax credit may be applied in one year, or during the next five years. Individuals are limited to receiving no more than $100,000 in NIP credits in a single year.

Proposed changes in federal tax policy could reduce the effect of the state credit on federal taxes related to donations made after Aug. 27, 2018, but state rules are unchanged.

Donors may give online, or make checks payable to Read Aloud West Virginia and send them to Read Aloud West Virginia, P.O. Box 1784, Charleston WV 25326.

For more information about NIP tax credits or anything else, please call Read Aloud at (304) 345-5212, or email Executive Director Mary Kay Bond at readaloud@frontier.com. Thank you.

Carter Family Foundation and City National Bank support Read Aloud

by Book DistributionDonorsNews

Read Aloud is most grateful to the Carter Family Foundation and City National Bank of West Virginia for funds they recently gave to support our Book Distribution Program.

The Book Distribution program sponsored by Read Aloud West Virginia continues to grow and provide West

Virginia’s children with access to high interest reading material. Research shows that access matters.

Just as access to a basketball and hoop are essential to building basketball skills, access to books and magazines are necessary to building reading skills.

Thank you, Carter Family Foundation and City National Bank, for enabling Read Aloud to reach even more children with high-quality reading material!

 

It’s not too late to give to Read Aloud West Virginia!

by DonorsNewsSupporters

It’s not too late to contribute to Read Aloud’s 2017-2018 Annual Fund! Read Aloud’s work is dependent on funds provided by our wonderful donors. These contributions enable our staff to support local chapters and grow our program.

While volunteer chapters are the face of Read Aloud in their respective communities, we know from experience that they count on an office and staff to support them. Read Aloud was founded in 1987 but from 2000-2007, we existed without staff and the number of chapters fell from 53 to four in that time period. Read Aloud was re-established with a central office in 2007-2008. Today, we serve more than 200 schools in 30 counties. That progress would not be possible without our generous donors.

Annual Fund letters were mailed in October and many of you have already contributed. We thank you! Please remember the 2017-2018 Annual Fund drive continues and is not closed at the end of the calendar year. If you have not done so, please consider making a donation to help us continue the work of getting books in the hands and on the minds of West Virginia’s children.

BB&T West Virginia Foundation helps put books in children’s hands

by Book DistributionDonorsNewsSupporters

The BB&T West Virginia Foundation has awarded Read Aloud a $2,500 grant to support book distribution programs throughout the state. BB&T has provided similar financial support for several years, and the organization is grateful for the role they continue to play in helping Read Aloud maintain and expand its book distribution programs.

Sixty-one percent of low-income families do not have children’s books in the home, according to the Campaign for Grade Level Reading. Research has found that access to books is a critical factor in educational achievement. It is such a key element that researcher and California State University professor Jeff McQuillan concluded that “the only behavior measure that correlates significantly with reading scores is the number of books in the home.”

Read Aloud West Virginia offers comprehensive, research-based programming designed to engage families, provide consistent “commercials” for reading in the classroom and increase student access to print. Distribution of books and other high-interest reading materials through events that engage children and families is integral to our efforts. Projects vary from county to county based on availability of funds and resources. Programs offered include:

Reading Round Up

Working in conjunction with public schools, volunteers distribute books, magazines and educational materials to students and parents participating in spring Kindergarten and Pre-kindergarten Round-ups (enrollment fairs attended by a majority of students entering kindergarten). Children choose their books from a selection of titles chosen for their age group.

Snuggle and Read

Preschool students and their families are invited to a program where they receive a blanket and books of their choice. A short presentation provides information about the importance of reading aloud to children and a parent’s role in education. Children hear a story read by a Read Aloud volunteer and educational materials are provided to families.

Summer Reading Initiative

This program provides six books to each student at a designated elementary school at the end of the school year. Ideally, the program is offered to students for a minimum of three years to maximize efficacy, as the effects of summer learning loss are cumulative. Children choose the books they receive from a list of titles selected by experts in the field of children’s literacy and an end-of-year event is held to distribute the books.

Distribution by Request

Read Aloud sponsors general distribution of new and used books as funding and availability permit. It is important to distribute books in a way that is meaningful to students and involves families in the process. All schools enrolled in Read Aloud are eligible to request books through this program. Schools often request books for distribution at family fun nights and other school-sponsored events.

BB&T West Virginia Foundation has been an indispensable partner to Read Aloud West Virginia’s Book Distribution Program. Since 2008, Read Aloud has grown to serve 30 county chapters. That growth brings additional opportunities to place books in the hands and homes of children. With BB&T West Virginia Foundation’s support, the organization can provide more children the tools they need to succeed in school and life.

Ross Foundation funds program support, technology upgrades

by DonorsNewsSupporters

By Melody Simpson

Many thanks go to The Ross Foundation, a family foundation operating in the Mid-Ohio Valley region, for its recent $44,000 grant to Read Aloud West Virginia! A portion of this grant is for sustaining (or starting) Read Aloud programs in Jackson, Pleasants and Wood counties; the balance is for upgrading Read Aloud’s database. Thanks to this grant, we are completing a significant upgrade to our database program which will enable us to better track and communicate with those who are so critical to our programs’ success—our donors, volunteer readers, county coordinators and many more.

It is somewhat unusual for donors to grant funds for operating costs like salaries and technology, but Tres Ross, executive director of The Ross Foundation, recognizes the value of this type of investment. Ross, who is also involved with the West Virginia Nonprofit Association and Philanthropy West Virginia, has broad experience with what makes nonprofits successful. “I know many funders are hesitant to support overhead,” Ross commented, but said he has come to realize that nonprofit organizations need financial resources to grow their programs, and things like quality staff and technology are critical to this success.

“Over the years,” Ross noted, “I realized that ‘what you get is what you pay for.’  If you want to grow an organization and have it become a key player in the community, then you need to pay for that quality staff to implement programs.” A Wall Street Journal article entitled, “Why Can’t We Sell Charity Like We Sell Perfume?” reinforced his thoughts on nonprofit funding needs.

In 2013, three leading sources of information about U.S. charities—BBB Wise Giving Alliance, Charity Navigator, and GuideStar—jointly wrote an open letter to charitable donors called “The Overhead Myth.” After noting the tendency of donors to focus too much on the percentage of expenditures going toward administrative and fundraising costs when deciding which charities to support, they assert that many charities should actually spend more on overhead than they do, in areas such as training, planning, evaluation and internal systems to increase their charitable impact. The open letter includes some surprising statistics on the importance of spending on overhead, and the danger of underinvesting in the type of critical infrastructure that keeps a nonprofit healthy and successful. For more information on this joint letter, see http://overheadmyth.com/.

Read Aloud’s programs, and their success, depend on educating parents, teachers, school administrators, and businesses about the critical importance of modeling the joy of reading  to encourage children to want to learn to read.  They also depend on recruiting, training, supporting, retaining, and tracking volunteer readers across West Virginia, and on creating, training, supporting, retaining, and sustaining strong county chapters (currently 30 and counting). Our “output,” while including some tangible items like books to distribute, is largely reflected in intangibles:  Read Aloud conferences which reenergize county chapters and volunteers and help them share ideas; schools which welcome volunteer readers into their classrooms; trained volunteer readers who dependably show up each week to share their love of books; and ultimately, in more children learning, and loving, to read. All these may then be reflected in rising reading scores in schools and counties which have vibrant Read Aloud programs.  But none of this happens without mundane “overhead-type” investments—like upgraded database software.

The Ross Foundation “gets it.”  For this, we are exceedingly grateful.

Melody Simpson is an attorney at Bowles Rice LLP, a volunteer reader and a member of the Read Aloud West Virginia board and newsletter committee.

 

CAMC grant connects literacy, health

by DonorsSupporters

Many thanks to Charleston Area Medical Center for their recent contribution of $500 to Read Aloud West Virginia. CAMC knows that health literacy is not possible without good reading skills and that we must work to raise children who can manage their own health well. Read Aloud’s work plays an important role in the health of our communities and we are happy that CAMC acknowledged that relationship in this way!

 

Read Aloud WV Awarded NIP Tax Credits

by DonorsNews

Read Aloud West Virginia has been awarded tax credits through the West Virginia Neighborhood Investment Program (NIP). These credits are available to Read Aloud donors who make a contribution of $500 or more.

The organization receives a limited number of credits which are available to donors on a first come, first served basis. Contact Communications and Development Director Lynn Kessler at lkessler@readaloudwestvirginia.org or (304) 345-5212 to make a donation, mail your contribution to PO Box 1784, Charleston, WV 25326 or donate online today.

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It’s Giving Tuesday: Give the Gift of Reading!

by DonorsNewsSocial MediaSupporters

This year, on Tuesday, November 29, 2016, Read Aloud West Virginia is participating in #GivingTuesday, a global day dedicated to giving.

Last year, more than 45,000 organizations in 71 countries came together to celebrate #GivingTuesday. Since its founding in 2012, #GivingTuesday has inspired giving around the world, resulting in greater donations, volunteer hours, and activities that bring about real change in communities. We invite you to join the movement and to help get out and give this November 29 and beyond.

Here are some ways you can get involved:

How are YOU giving this #GivingTuesday?

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