June 25, 2012

Weingart Foundation Donates $260,000 To Support Reading Partners Los Angeles

Grant helps launch Reading Partners Los Angeles Growth Initiative

Los Angeles, CA June 25, 2012 — Reading Partners and the Weingart Foundation today announced the launch of the Los Angeles Growth Initiative. The initiative will be supported by the Weingart Foundation’s flagship investment of $260,000. This grant will allow Reading Partners to expand into 4 additional schools and serve 200 more students in Los Angeles.

At each school site, Reading Partners transforms a dedicated space into a reading center and recruits a corps of 40-100 community volunteers who work one-on-one with K-5 grade students who have fallen behind in reading. Tutors work with students twice weekly for 45-minute sessions, using a balanced literacy curriculum.

Support from the Weingart Foundation will more than double Reading Partners’ capacity in Los Angeles. Next year Reading Partners will serve 450 students at 9 schools and set the course to impact more than 2,000 economically disadvantaged children by 2015.

Reading Partners is in a period of exponential growth, increasing the number of students served nation-wide this year by 50%. This growth is supported by a 3-year, $3.5 million Social Innovation Fund (SIF) investment. Reading Partners is one of only nine organizations selected for this investment after a highly competitive process.

“We are honored to be partnering with the Weingart Foundation on this Growth Initiative,” said Erica Trullinger, Executive Director for Reading Partners Los Angeles. “Reading Partners is empowering community members to help our public schools achieve ambitious goals in reading. This grant sets us on a path to dramatically increase that impact in Los Angeles.”

More than 4,000 Reading Partners volunteers spend over 90,000 hours serving 3,000 students across 5 states and 67 schools. Using a research based curriculum, Reading Partners volunteers have a nearly 90 percent success rate increasing students’ reading achievement by an entire grade level in just 26 hours. This new $260,000 growth capital grant brings Weingart’s total giving to Reading Partners to $280,000 since 2008. The Weingart Foundation has a long history of supporting Los Angeles communities through programs that focus on K-12 public education and community improvement projects.

About Reading Partners

As a national literacy intervention nonprofit, Reading Partners’ vision is that all children in this nation will have the reading skills they need to reach their full potential. Reading Partners serves 67 schools throughout California, Washington DC, New York City, Dallas, Colorado and Baltimore.

First introduced in California in 1999, Reading Partners provides twice-a-week one-on-one volunteer tutoring to students at Title I schools who have fallen behind in reading. According to pre- and post-program assessments, the organization has an 88% success rate in improving academic achievement for children who have fallen behind in reading skills. For more information, visit www.readingpartners.org and follow us on Facebook and Twitter.

About The Weingart Foundation 

The Weingart Foundation is a private, nonprofit grantmaking foundation that seeks to build better communities by providing assistance to people in need, thereby helping them to lead more rewarding, responsible lives. The Foundation provides grants and other program support designed to improve the capacity and sustainability of organizations to achieve their missions in the areas of health, human services, and education.

The Foundation supports nonprofits across seven Southern California counties including Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside, Santa Barbara, San Bernardino, Ventura and San Diego. Since 1972, the Foundation has awarded over $900 million to support organizations working in these fields throughout Southern California. With assets of approximately $700 million, the Foundation is one of the largest philanthropic institutions in the region. For more information, visit, www.weingartfnd.org.

Media Contact: Susanna Thornton / (510) 333-7322 / susanna.thornton@readingpartners.org