As a participant in Comcast’s leadership development program ("Fundamentals of Leadership") this year, I had the great opportunity to extend Comcast’s community investment focus on literacy to support the Philadelphia Reads organization.
Philadelphia teachers rarely have enough independent-reading books in their classrooms and with about half of Philadelphia pupils already reading below grade level by fourth grade help is needed. It is Philadelphia Reads mission to lend a hand. Philadelphia Reads provides publicly donated books and school supplies for free to teachers from public, charter and parochial schools, day care centers, after school programs and other educational sites citywide. During its weekly shopping sessions for teachers, the Book Bank has given away more than 250,000 books in the last three years alone.
A great number of Comcast employees came together at multiple staff locations, including the Comcast Center, West Chester, Oaks and Mt. Laurel to support this cause. As of May 28th, 2010 Comcaster’s raised over 1,000 books which were sorted, packed and delivered to the Philadelphia Reads distribution center at Martin Luther King H.S. This project was a great success as this effort will truly make a difference for schoolchildren.
Learn more about Philadelphia Reads by checking out this video.