May 3, 2018
Top 5 Reasons Reading Partners Volunteers Strengthen Silicon Valley
For Immediate Release
Contact:
Aarika Riddle
Executive Director, Reading Partners Silicon Valley
(650) 644-9156 | aarika.riddle@readingpartners.
READING PARTNERS VOLUNTEERS STRENGTHEN SILICON VALLEY IN MANY DIFFERENT WAYS — HERE ARE THE TOP 5
Milpitas, CA — April 18, 2018
For over four decades, National Volunteer Week has given nonprofits an opportunity to recognize the invaluable support of volunteers that help fuel their work. In celebration of National Volunteer Week in 2018 (April 15-21), Reading Partners Silicon Valley created a list highlighting the top five ways its volunteers make the community stronger and better.
Top 5 Reasons Reading Partners Volunteers Make Silicon Valley a Better Place
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Volunteers drive student impact – Volunteers are working one-on-one with 820 students this year in Silicon Valley to help deliver meaningful results for kids (last year, nearly 90% of Reading Partners’ Kindergarten through second-grade students in Silicon Valley mastered key foundational reading skills needed to read at grade level).
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By promoting educational equity, volunteers strengthen the broader community – Everyone benefits in the long run when student literacy achievement is bolstered. Students who don’t read proficiently by fourth grade are four times more likely to drop out of school. It’s estimated that every student who walks out of the classroom without a diploma costs our society $260,000 in lost earnings, taxes, and productivity.
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Volunteers serve as a resource multiplier – Because Reading Partners engages so many community volunteers in their work, the program is more affordable for schools to implement than other literacy interventions. For every dollar invested in reading partners, the program delivers more than $2 in resources to students.
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Volunteers support strong public schools – Thanks to the involvement of 1,100 community tutors in Silicon Valley, 98% of teachers report Reading Partners is valuable to their school and 100% of principals report improved school-wide reading progress.
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Volunteers help bring joy to learning – Students feed off of the energy and excitement of Reading Partners’ volunteer tutors. In Silicon Valley, 94% of volunteers are satisfied with their tutoring experience and that enthusiasm helps students develop a lifelong love of reading that is key to success in school and beyond.
“Our volunteers provide the individualized attention needed to help students catch up to reading at grade level,” said Aarika Riddle, Executive Director of Reading Partners Silicon Valley. “It’s great to see the special relationships volunteers form with their students to help them become lifelong readers.”
Reading Partners is a national nonprofit that collaborates with community volunteers and local public schools in Silicon Valley and in 13 other regions across the country to equip students with the foundational skills they need to be able to read at grade level by fourth grade.
In an effort to strengthen the literacy skills of as many students as possible, Reading Partners Silicon Valley is constantly looking for more local volunteers to commit just an hour a week to work individually with children who struggle with reading. To become a volunteer with Reading Partners, please visit readingpartners.org/volunteer today.
Reading Partners volunteers work one-on-one with students. (Photo credit: Reading Partners)
About Reading Partners
Reading Partners empowers students to succeed in reading and in life by engaging community volunteers to provide one-on-one tutoring. Since its founding, the national nonprofit organization has provided proven, individualized literacy tutoring to nearly 45,000 elementary school students in under-resourced schools across ten states and the District of Columbia. Visitreadingpartners.org to learn more about our program impact, or connect with us on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, and Instagram.
