A Delicious Reader to Reader Fundraising Event Featuring Chef Bill Collins!

Join us at Whole Foods Market in Hadley on Thursday, April 21 at 6:30 p.m. for a delicious fundraising dinner event to benefit Reader to Reader.

For 15 years, Reader to Reader has been dedicated to expanding literacy and learning opportunities for the nation's most chronically underserved and vulnerable communities – with much of its work focused on Holyoke and Springfield.

You can help support this mission in a most delicious way – at an appetizing dinner event hosted by Whole Foods Market in Hadley, with food prepared by personal chef, author, and TV culinary celebrity Chef Bill Collins, who appears weekly on Channel 22's Mass Appeal.

Chef Bill will be demonstrating and serving four tantalizing courses, with accompanying beer and wine tastings, in an evening of equal parts learning, eating, and doing good.

The cost of admission is $75.

To do the most good, bring your check tucked in the pages of a children’s book (new or gently used) that you want to donate! All proceeds will benefit Reader to Reader, and all books will go to at-risk students in local schools.

Advanced reservations are required. Seats are limited, so contact Dennis Quinn at dquinn@readertoreader.org to reserve your space.

Menu:

Appetizers
Cheese/Charcuterie Board
American BBQ Pork Pot Sticker Dumplings

Salad
Simple Asparagus Salad in Parmesan Crisp Cups

Main Course
Pan Seared Scallops with an Orange/Grapefruit/Ginger Reduction Sauce
Rib Eye Steaks with a Red Wine and Bleu Cheese Sauce
Polenta Surprise du Jour

Dessert
Bananas Foster with Vanilla Ice Cream

Reader to Reader Donates Thousands of Books to Mississippi’s Public Libraries

Those who use their library regularly know how great it is to find new books on the shelves. That’s why we are so pleased to announce Reader to Reader’s Mississippi Book Project is bringing thousands of new mystery novels to public libraries throughout Mississippi.

The donation comes thanks to the generosity of book publisher SOHO Press, which has donated thousands of its mystery titles for the effort.

“We are very grateful to SOHO Press for making this donation possible,” Reader to Reader executive director David Mazor said. “SOHO Press has so many outstanding titles and series that mystery fans love, and we are excited that we can bring them to libraries throughout Mississippi.”

Reader to Reader’s Mississippi Book project was launched in 2002, and has brought tens of thousands of books to schools and public libraries across the state.

Book Your Vacation!

We dropped off hundreds of books for a "Book Your Vacation" event at Glenwood Elementary in Springfield, Massachusetts. 

Book Your Vacation gives out books to stem learning loss during school vacations and summer breaks. 

We gave out a lot of books to carry (one for every student), but these two students, George and Jose, happily helped us bring box after box into the school. Thank you so much for your help, guys, and a big thank you to Lori Black, the Instructional Leadership Specialist at Glenwood, for setting up the event for the students!

Read on, kids!

Literacy Organization Donates Thousands of Books to Navajo and Hopi

Katherine Locke, Reporter 
Navajo Hopi Observer

FLAGSTAFF, Ariz. - School children on and around Hopi and the Navajo Nation received tens of thousands of new children's books over the holidays to take home thanks to Reader to Reader, a Massachusetts literacy organization.

Reader to Reader works on improving literacy in Arizona and New Mexico, across the United States and internationally.

"We pleased to make this large donation just before the holidays in order to get books into children's hands that they can enjoy over winter vacation," said David Mazor, founder and executive director of Reader of Reader. "We had the option of donating these books to any school districts in the country but we selected the districts that are on and near the Navajo and Hopi Nations as part of our ongoing support of literacy for Native children. We especially thank our partner Scholastic Inc. for the mountain of books they have donated."

Mazor said the organization was contacted about a dozen years ago by a school on the Navajo reservation in New Mexico.

"We started helping them build their school library and over time it grew to be a bigger effort with more schools and school districts," he said. "It just got bigger and bigger and bigger."

Over the past decade, Reader to Reader has donated over $2.5 million in books, computers and school supplies to school it has worked with on or near the Navajo Nation and the Hopi reservation.

"We help supply a lot of different things depending on the needs of the school," Mazor said. "We reach a whole lot of different schools that range from one end of the Navajo reservation to the other and also on the Hopi reservation."

Among the school systems receiving thousands of books are: Gallup-McKinley County Public Schools, Gallup, New Mexico; Central Consolidated Schools, Shiprock, New Mexico; Ganado Unified School District, Ganado, Arizona; and Hopi School District, Keams Canyon, Arizona.

"We are so happy to be a recipient of Reader to Reader's and Scholastic's generosity," said Mary Lindenmeyer, library medial coordinator for Gallup-McKinley County Schools in Gallup, New Mexico. "They are such an amazing organization that has had a profound impact on the children in our district."

In all, Reader to Reader is donating 17,000 new books for grades kindergarten through grade 12 totaling $200,000 dollars. The books are provided by Reader to Reader through its partnerships with Scholastic Corp. through The Scholastic Possible Fund, Pioneer Valley Press and several other leading publishers.

The organization works with the publishers for what would be of interest or appropriate to where the donation is going because it donates books all around the world and every place is different in what the kids need and what the kids are interested in. The donations sometimes include textbooks, too.

Mazor said part of the reason for founding the organization was the critical shortage of books in lower income communities around the country and the world.


"I wanted to directly address that problem," he said. "Books just open up and give you a doorway to unlocking imagination. On a practical level, the better you read, the better your job prospects are when you grow up, but also, the more you'll know about the world. Reading itself is such a pleasurable experience that when kids get more books in their lives, they enjoy that."

© Copyright 2016 Western News&Info, Inc.

Hurricane Relief Books Reach the Bahamas

Over a thousand books and school supplies donated by Reader to Reader have reached the Bahamas, where they will help restock schools destroyed by Hurricane Joaquin in October 2015.

We are very happy with the response:

"There is an amazing assortment of books from your group!"

Hurricane Joaquin, which at its peak had wind speeds of 155 MPH, was only the 20th Category 4 or 5 hurricane to impact the island nation in historical records dating all the way back to 1851.

Schools were severely damaged with many losing all their books, computers, furniture and school supplies.

Many homes were completely destroyed, with 87% of the homes on Crooked Island totally destroyed.

We are pleased to be part of the relief effort, and are continuing to ship textbooks, fiction and nonfiction for all grades, and school supplies.

2,500 Books for Maine Children

SANFORD, MAINE - Thousands of low-income children in York County will be taking home new children’s books, thanks to Reader to Reader, a literacy organization based in Massachusetts.

The books were donated to York County Community Action, located on Spruce Street in Sanford. YCCAC will distribute the books to low-income children of all ages in the area.

In all, Reader to Reader is donating 2,500 new books with a total value of $25,000.

The books are being provided by Reader to Reader through its partnerships with Scholastic Corporation through their The Scholastic Possible Fund, Pioneer Valley Press and several other leading publishers.

"Reader to Reader's generous donations of multiple shipments of books have allowed us to offer books to all of our 2,000-plus children that we serve, as well as their older siblings," said Jennifer Quimby, the WIC Program Director at York County Community Action.

David Mazor, the founder and executive director of Reader of Reader, made sure to get the books to YCCAC in time for Christmas.

"We are pleased to make this large donation just before the holidays in order to get books into children’s hands that they can enjoy over winter vacation," he said in a press release a few days before the holiday.

Reader to Reader has a long history of donating books to school and outreach programs in Maine, and has donated over $200,000 in books during the past decade. Based in Amherst, Massachusetts, Reader to Reader, Inc. is a non-profit organization that distributes books and computers to schools and libraries in need. It has donated over 5 million books to schools and libraries in need across the United States and in 19 countries.

Books for Students on the Red Lake Nation

Students at Red Lake High School, on the Red Lake Nation in Minnesota, enjoy their Reader to Reader book donation.

Reader to Reader runs multiple program that support Native American students all across the United States.