Park Place Dealerships Donate 1,000 Books to NBC5/Telemundo39 Reading With You Initiative

Originally published by Laura Harris on NBC NTX

Park Place Lexus dealerships in Grapevine and Plano donated 1,000 books to the NBC5/Telemundo39 Reading with You Initiative.

The dealerships hosted a book drive to collect those children’s books to be donated to Reading with You partners, Reading Partners North Texas.

“There are a surprising number of families who don’t have a single children’s book in their home,” Anam Ali-Hashamghai, Experiential Marketing Manager at Park Place Dealerships said. “Every child deserves the opportunity to learn and succeed in life.”

The book donation was accepted by NBC5 Vice President of Community Investment Nada Ruddock. NBC5 Today Co-Anchor Laura Harris and Reading Partners North Texas Community Engagement Officer Jennifer Quick.

“To see there is this urgency in needing to catch our students up as rapidly and as quickly as we can and having books at home to keep practicing as they are leaving the school environment is one way they can get that extra help to close the gaps,” Quick said.

In the summer of 2019, NBC5/Telemundo39 launched a nine-week initiative to help prevent summer slide in young students across North Texas. It’s the time of year where kids can lose a lot of what they learned over the school year. In collaboration with Reading Partners North Texas, we came up with a comprehensive guide and reading list for kids and parents to find that love for reading, even when they are out of school.