Spring update

Ever since Rachel Minnick joined Reading Partners Sacramento as the new executive director the team has hit the ground running and we are prepared to be kept on their toes. Rachel comes to Reading Partners from the City of Sacramento where she served as the chief of staff for Mayor Pro Tem Angelique Ashby, a City Council member. She was a Reading Partners tutor in 2012 and served as the communications officer for Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson’s literacy initiative Sacramento READS.

Site coordinators and program managers have been working hard to pair every student in need with a tutor by the middle of April. We are just a few students shy of serving 470 students at our nine reading sites this year. With the help of over 500 tutors, we have improved the educational outcomes for these children, and engage volunteers from all walks of life.

This excellent work got the attention of Sacramento MetroEdge, a group of 500 young professionals who are making their mark across Sacramento. This year, MetroEdge chose Reading Partners as their beneficiary and are recruiting members to become tutors, to raise funds and to increase public awareness of literacy. Members developed an entire social media campaign just for our May 5​ Big Day of Giving, creating messages and graphics we can use for Facebook and Twitter. Even better, they will be posting regular updates from their MetroEdge accounts leading up to and during the Big Day of Giving. Their Twitter account has over five-thousand followers, so this is huge!

Big Day of Giving is a 24-hour donation drive that supports hundreds of local non-profits. Participating non-profits can earn extra dollars for special prize challenges. We want to get the most individual donations in an hour at two points during the day. Help get us over the top by donating during the “Recess for Reading” hour from ​10-11 am and the “Feed the need to Read” hour from 6​-7 pm. Of course, donations are welcome any time from midnight to 11:59 pm on May 5.

And… if one fundraising event wasn’t enough, we were fortunate to be chosen as a beneficiary for Roebbelen Construction’s Builders Fore Kids golf tournament on May 4 at the Granite Bay Golf  Club. We​ are​ grateful for the support of MetroEdge and Roebbelen.