The national headlines in the past week have featured a reading-related feat: one million dollars raised by Reading Rainbow on the first day of a scheduled, 35-day crowd-funding campaign. LeVar Burton, who hosted the award-winning PBS literacy program for 25 years, has been on an intensive media tour. He’s shared with numerous national news outlets, including NBC Nightly News and Forbes magazine, that he is on a mission. Burton considers it a social imperative that children acquire a love for reading.
Here in central Virginia, former news anchor and literacy educator Angie Miles has a noticeable amount of alignment with the Reading Rainbow effort. One of her aims is the same: increase children’s reading skill by engaging them in ways that help them enjoy reading. Her method is somewhat different. Miles is offering summer camps that blend reading instruction and engagement with other, kid-friendly activities, like art and sports. While Reading Rainbow offers virtual field trips that entertain while exploring books, HAPPY Reading camps will provide a more real-world, hands-on approach for learners who attend the one-week, day camps throughout summer.
The alignment doesn’t end there. Like Reading Rainbow, HAPPY Reading Camp is relying on contributions from crowd funding to make the camps a robust success. “Many families recognize the value of what we are doing and they are registering their children,” says Ms. Miles, adding that an entire week of her camp costs about the same amount as what parents might expect to pay for the reading assessment alone. She says, “We’ve tried to make the price as reasonable as possible, but to host a quality camp with excellent learner experiences and expert staffing is not inexpensive. The all-day camp works out to $7 an hour or less for each camper, which is ultimately a bargain, but it’s still too expensive for many of the families whose children need it the most.” That’s why Ms. Miles has sought tuition scholarship assistance for those families via crowd funding platform Indiegogo. In phase one, she’s set a goal of $6,900, but actually hopes to raise much more, over the course of several weeks. “In the fall, I want more children who might return to school as reluctant or struggling readers to have a different experience. I want them to start the year confident about their skills and to find themselves reading role models for other kids, some of them for the first time in life.”
Ms. Miles’ Indiegogo campaign has not come close to raising the kind of capital Reading Rainbow has seen. But her campaign has won the endorsement and encouragement of the original Reading Rainbow’s creator. Twila Liggett was the PBS’ program’s founder and executive producer, and she was the first to make a financial contribution to the HAPPY Reading camp project. Also, years before LeVar Burton spoke to national media about his newest literacy mission, he hinted about his goals with Angie Miles in an interview for her reading website. Miles would like the synchronicity to yield strong outcomes in the few days remaining in phase one of her Indiegogo campaign.
“I am often asked why I don’t start a non-profit, since my personal and professional goals are ultimately altruistic ones. I do plan to create a self-funding, non-profit arm to continuously give to those whose needs are not a match for what they can afford, but I don’t think you have to be a non-profit to do what’s right and to do good for others. In fact, I believe every company should focus on the well-being of all of us as a crucial part of the bottom line. And I believe wholeheartedly that people are much more important than profits. Like Reading Rainbow, I look for innovative ways to succeed at what is essential to accomplish. Personally, I don’t know that I’ll make any money from this venture, but I do need to cover all the necessary expenses, which will run into the tens of thousands.”
After Miles’ days as a full-time, local news anchor, she pursued and obtained a master’s degree in reading with an endorsement in gifted education. She has heavy course concentration in both early literacy acquisition and in adolescent literacy. She agrees with national researchers and reading advocates that reading has become the new civil rights issue. “The school dropout rate, the persistent achievement gap, the lack of life choices and productivity for those who can’t read well…these are issues that should be part of the national dialogue and problems that need to be solved for the good of the country,” says Ms. Miles. “Schools are working hard, but they need help, and some of us are looking for creative ways to be part of the solution. And the very latest research tells us that what happens with kids and reading over the summer months has the potential to exacerbate or ameliorate the long-standing achievement gap between those who have and those who don’t. It’s time to do something new.”
Miles says while she is so pleased crowd funding platforms are available, the situation is not ideal. “I find myself in a position to raise money for something, because I believe in it and want it accomplished. I have never enjoyed asking anyone for money. It’s hard for me. But what I do enjoy is delivering on what people’s investments and making them proud to be part of the outcome. That’s my intention here. To create a giving team and report on the success of these campers so that contributors know they invested wisely in something that will make a difference for these children and ultimately for all of us.”
For more information:
Angie Miles can be reached at lovebooks@happyreading.org or 804-912-0896 mobile
The Indiegogo campaign: https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/happy-reading-leads-to-happy-people
(Also read a comment from Twila Liggett, Reading Rainbow Creator/Former Executive Producer.)
Interview with LeVar Burton and HAPPY Reading: http://happyreading.org/leVar.html
Website for camp: http://happyreadingcamp.com
