Challenge gift keeps 1,000 students reading After the Bell
April 22, 2020
For Immediate Release
Contact:
Kecia Greenho
Senior Executive Director, èßäAV South Carolina
508-561-3537Â |Â Â kecia.greenho@readingpartners.
North Charleston, SC — April 22, 2020
èßäAV South Carolina is pleased to announce a challenge gift to support 1,000 young readers through their After the Bell campaign. Now through April 30, supporters have the opportunity to triple their donations, thanks to the generosity of Pam and Michael Wilson and the èßäAV board. After the Bell provides struggling readers attending high poverty elementary schools in Charleston, Berkeley and Dorchester Counties with backpacks filled with diverse books and reading activities to help them maintain the reading gains they made before schools closed last month.
Pam Wilson, a longtime èßäAV tutor, and her husband Michael, approached the literacy nonprofit to offer a challenge gift for the campaign. When After the Bell reaches its goal of $25,000, the couple will fund an additional two hundred backpacks – providing a total of 1,000 students with critical literacy materials at home. Each backpack donation of $125 will also be matched by the èßäAV board, allowing donors to triple their impact on young readers.
This extended time away from the classroom has devastating impacts on students who are already the most vulnerable to falling behind. èßäAV is committed to helping students who struggle with reading build a home library and ensure they do not slip backward. The organization is working alongside school administrators to distribute the backpacks in the event that schools do not reopen.
³Õ¾±²õ¾±³ÙÌýÂ to donate online before April 30 and help 1,000 Lowcountry students get backpacks filled with books and essential literacy materials.
Thanks to a generous challenge gift from Pam and Michael Wilson, you can help èßäAV distribute 1,000 reading backpacks to students at risk of falling behind.
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About èßäAV
For more than , èßäAV has empowered 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 mobilized more than 60,000 community volunteers to provide , individualized literacy tutoring to nearly 60,000 elementary school students in over 400 under-resourced schools across ten states and the District of Columbia. Visit to learn more about our , or connect with us on ,Ìý,, and .