Top 5 Reasons Reading Partners Volunteers Make Baltimore a Better Place

For Immediate Release

Contact:

Jeffrey Zwillenberg

Executive Director, Reading Partners Baltimore

(410) 949-1552  | jeffrey.zwillenberg@staging.readingpartners.org

Baltimore, MD — April 16, 2018

For over four decades, National Volunteer Week has given nonprofits an opportunity to recognize the invaluable support of volunteers that help fuel their work. In celebration of National Volunteer Week in 2018 (April 15-21), Reading Partners Baltimore created a list highlighting the top five ways its volunteers make the community stronger and better.

Top 5 Reasons Reading Partners Volunteers Make Baltimore a Better Place

1. Volunteers drive student impact – Volunteers are working one-on-one with more than 750 students this year in Baltimore to help deliver meaningful results for kids (last year, 81% of Reading Partners’ Kindergarten through second-grade students in Baltimore mastered key foundational reading skills needed to read at grade level).

2. By promoting educational equity, volunteers strengthen the broader community – Everyone benefits in the long run when student literacy achievement is bolstered. Students who don’t read proficiently by fourth grade are four times more likely to drop out of school. It’s estimated that every student who walks out of the classroom without a diploma costs our society $260,000 in lost earnings, taxes, and productivity.

3. Volunteers serve as a resource multiplier – Because Reading Partners engages so many community volunteers in their work, the program is more affordable for schools to implement than other literacy interventions. For every dollar invested in reading partners, the program delivers more than $2 in resources to students.

4. Volunteers support strong public schools – Thanks to the involvement of 1,100 community tutors in Baltimore, 97% of teachers report Reading Partners is valuable to their school and 100% of principals report improved school-wide reading progress.

5. Volunteers help bring joy to learning – Students feed off of the energy and excitement of Reading Partners’ volunteer tutors. In Baltimore, 95% of volunteers are satisfied with their tutoring experience and that enthusiasm helps students develop a lifelong love of reading that is key to success in school and beyond.

“Our ability to serve hundreds of students across our city is made possible through our volunteers”, said Jeffrey Zwillenberg, Executive Director of Reading Partners Baltimore. “And beyond this reach, it is these same volunteer tutors who are creating life-changing opportunities by delivering the gift of reading to their students. We are more than just a one-on-one literacy tutoring program — we are a volunteer and community driven organization seeking to create educational equity for our entire city.”

Reading Partners is a national nonprofit that collaborates with community volunteers and local public schools in Baltimore and in 13 other regions across the country to equip students with the foundational skills they need to be able to read at grade level by fourth grade.

In an effort to strengthen the literacy skills of as many students as possible, Reading Partners Baltimore is constantly looking for more local volunteers to commit just an hour a week to work individually with children who struggle with reading. To become a volunteer with Reading Partners, please visit staging.readingpartners.org/volunteer today.

Reading Partners volunteers work one-on-one with students. (Photo credit: Reading Partners)

About Reading Partners

Reading Partners empowers 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 provided proven, individualized literacy tutoring to nearly 45,000 elementary school students in under-resourced schools across ten states and the District of Columbia. Visitstaging.readingpartners.org to learn more about our program impact, or connect with us on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, and Instagram.