Reading Is FUNdamental Pittsburgh

The Storymobile visited Bakery Square for a special storytime and book giveaway. We had so much fun reading "Waiting for Mr. Sloth" by Katy Hudson and helping kids pick books that captivated their imaginations! Thank you to Bakery Square for partnering with us. We can't wait to come back!

Kyle Fahsel, our Director of Mentoring, was a panelist this week at a roundtable discussion moderated by U.S. Deputy Secretary of Education Cindy Marten during her “Raise the Bar: Lead the World” visit to Pittsburgh King. The panel discussed evidence-based practices, like community schools and summer learning opportunities, that accelerate learning and support student attendance. We are grateful to our partners at Pittsburgh Public Schools for hosting this special event and inviting Kyle to speak on behalf of RIF – it was a unique privilege to engage with leaders and stakeholders in our community and share about our amazing students and our dedicated mentors! Check out the article! https://lnkd.in/e9U7-Jsb

Eat'n Park Hospitality Group is celebrating 75 years of smiles! A heartfelt thank you to our friend, Smiley, for donating cookies to our mentoring Reading Buddies to enjoy at their end-of-year celebrations! Here’s to many more years of making a difference together! #smileycookies #readingbuddies #mentoring

We’ve been celebrating the end of the school year with our Reading Buddies over the past few weeks as the program year concludes for RIF Everybody Wins! Mentors and mentees opened gifts, posed with certificates, and said goodbyes at our End of Year parties after meeting with together each week for reading, literacy games, and activities. Students also received their summer reading bags, which included 6 books each student picked to keep their reading muscles strong over the next few months! We are already making plans to match more students with reading mentors in the fall – please visit https://lnkd.in/ewQCDdUy to learn more.

The Reading Is FUNdamental Pittsburgh program concluded for the school year yesterday. I thoroughly enjoyed reading and playing games with my young companion. Cheers to a fantastic year and anticipation for the upcoming one!

We were thrilled to welcome attorneys Keymo Hoshing, Ron Jones, and Gabrielle Lee to a special Everybody Wins! mentoring session at PPS Weil to coincide with our May book giveaway of the children's book Black Lawyers of the Burgh!    Our guests shared with our 2nd grade reading buddies the message that you can be anything you want to be, stories about their work as Black lawyers in Pittsburgh, and the experience of being profiled in a book! “Ms. Gabbi,” one of the book’s co-authors, also shared what inspired her and her colleagues at the Allegheny County Bar Association's Homer S. Brown Division to write this important children’s book. Afterwards, all three attorneys graciously answered questions and signed autographs for students.    We are so appreciative of “Ms. Gabbi, Mr. Keymo, and Mr. Ron” for all they shared with students. Thanks also go out to Jordan Blask, Everybody Wins! mentor and RIF Board President, for helping to plan this event and to the Frost Brown Todd law firm for donating books for kids!

Today was the last day of the school year for Everybody Wins! a program of Reading Is FUNdamental Pittsburgh. If you have never experienced being a reading buddy, I highly recommend it! Once a week, I was able to break up my work day and go spend some time with a 3rd grade student. Not only did we read and play games but it helped keep me grounded in my purpose to give to the generations coming after me. I will miss my buddy but with an imagination that active I know she will have a great future in whatever she decides to do.

Thank you so much to our friends at FedEx Ground for hosting a book drive and collecting over 300 books! We can’t wait to share these amazing titles with our RIF kiddos! #RIFpgh #readingisfun #pittsburghnonprofit #bookdrive #fedexcares

Thank you so much to our friends at DICK'S Sporting Goods for hosting a book drive and collecting over 150 books! #RIFpgh #readingisfun #pittsburghnonprofit #bookdrive

It's so fun to learn about water with our friends from Pittsburgh Water and Sewer Authority. Check out this article they wrote about our visit to Pittsburgh Weil! https://lnkd.in/eNYkYARU