News & Press

For Immediate Release

Former EVP of Communications for HBO & HBO Max and Los Angeles Unified School District graduate brings Passion for literacy and storytelling to the Board

Los Angeles, CA, April 28, 2023 – National literacy and mentoring non-profit, Read to a Child^®, announced today that Karen Jones, former EVP of Communications for HBO & HBO Max, has joined its Board of Advisors in Greater Los Angeles.  A graduate of the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD), Karen is a strategic communications leader with 20+ years’ expertise in maximizing consumer and media awareness, navigating dynamic challenges, and driving transformation.

“I am excited to join Read to a Child’s efforts to spread the power of literacy through mentoring,” said Karen Jones. “As a second-generation Los Angeles native and a product of LA’s public education system, I am forever indebted to the educators who inspired my lifelong love of reading and storytelling.” Continued Karen, “as an advisory board member, I look forward to digging in and bringing whatever resources I can to this essential work.”

“I am thrilled that Karen Jones is joining the Los Angeles board, where her passion for literacy and equitable educational access, coupled with her experience in both LA public schools and in the corporate world, will be invaluable to Read to a Child,” said Paul Lamoureux, CEO of Read to a Child. “I look forward to collaborating with Karen to raise our visibility, attract more support and ultimately serve more children from under-resourced communities in the Read Aloud Mentoring Program.

About Karen Jones

Karen is the former Executive Vice President and Head of Communications for HBO and HBO Max. Working directly with the Chairman & CEO and leadership team, she was responsible for external communications including media relations, crisis and reputational management, and spearheading all publicity efforts for the award-winning original content slate at HBO and HBO Max.

Prior to her senior leadership role, Karen was a program publicist responsible for crafting and executing more than 40 campaigns including acclaimed HBO titles, Westworld, Chernobyl, Silicon Valley, Lovecraft Country, and The Pacific.

Karen currently serves as an Executive Committee member for the Television Academy Public Relations Peer Group. She has been a guest lecturer on entertainment publicity at USC’s Annenberg School, University of Texas at Austin, and Cal State Northridge. She is an alumna of The WICT Network’s Betsy Magness Leadership Institute, a leadership development program for women in media, technology, and entertainment, and has served as a mentor for the organization’s Southern California chapter. She is also a mentor for the Hollywood Radio & TV Society (HRTS), and is a former board member for Stand Tall International, which provides medical support for children in East Africa.

Karen graduated magna cum laude from Amherst College, where she received a B.A. in French. After a year of teaching, she continued her education with graduate studies at New York University before returning to her native Los Angeles to embark on a career in entertainment. Karen was born in South Los Angeles and currently resides in Mid-City.

About the Read Aloud Mentoring Program (RAMP)

Read to a Child recruits, vets, trains and manages thousands of corporate and community volunteers who participate in the Read Aloud Mentoring Program (RAMP). In RAMP, an adult is partnered one-on-one with a student who referred into the program by their elementary school teacher, for a rewarding, weekly read aloud experience. The relationship lasts for the entire school year and often extends for multiple years through the end of fourth grade. The simple act of reading aloud to a child once a week, over time, ignites a love of reading, improves literacy and socio-emotional skills and can have a profound impact on the child’s future. The Read Aloud Mentoring Program also offers adults with a convenient, joyful, and meaningful way to give back. The program, which is available at no-cost to Title I schools, is managed on-site at each partner school by a Read to a Child program coordinator and requires limited resources from each school.

About Read to a Child 

Read to a Child (readtoachild.org) is a national literacy and mentoring non-profit that fosters a love of reading, improves literacy skills and supports socio-emotional well-being in students from under-resourced communities.  Read to a Child collaborates with thousands of community and corporate volunteer mentors from more than 125 local businesses and organizations who read one-on-one to elementary students at 34 Title I schools in the greater metropolitan areas of Boston, Detroit, Hartford, Los Angeles and Miami.   Join the conversation on Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn.

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Contact: Gloria Jolley

Greater Los Angeles Executive Director

Read to a Child

(310) 208-5300

gloria.jolley@readtoachild.org

Event highlights Read to a Child’s kickoff of its fifth BPS partnership

BOSTON – Friday, March 31, 2023 – Mayor Michelle Wu today joined Boston Public Schools and national non-profit Read to a Child to mark the final day of National Reading Month by reading aloud to first grade students at the Mildred Ave K-8 School in Mattapan. The day showcased the importance of reading aloud, marked the launch of the organization’s Read Aloud Mentoring Program at the Mildred Ave K-8 School and highlighted its fifth partnership with a BPS school.

“Reading is a fundamental part of our children’s educational growth and success and has the power to nurture imagination and perspective,” said Mayor Michelle Wu. “I am grateful to Read to a Child for expanding its partnership with Boston Public Schools and their continued efforts to bring more volunteers into our schools to serve as reading mentors for our young people.”

Mayor Wu read My Very Favorite Book in the Whole Wide World written by Super Bowl champion and author Malcolm Mitchell. The book’s theme is to find yourself in the books you read and find books you love to read.  Mayor Wu was presented with a copy of the book autographed by Malcolm and signed by all of the first graders.  Read to a Child also provided each child with an autographed, personal copy of the book to bring home.

“I am thankful to Read to a Child and so pleased that Mildred Ave students will now receive the same critical interventions other students do at the Adams, Condon, Harvard-Kent and Tobin schools with this new partnership with Read to a Child,” said Superintendent Mary Skipper. “The Read Aloud Mentoring Program model of high dosage and long duration will benefit our students by increasing their literacy and building up their socio-emotional skills. This highly impactful program will ensure that our students are connected with caring adults to foster a life-long love of reading.”

BPS Reading and English Language Arts classes are designed to support students with building their reading skills and asking them to tackle difficult questions about themes, word choice, and making connections to real world events and situations. Reading also helps to expand student vocabulary.

“Both Mayor Wu’s and Superintendent Skipper’s commitment to improving literacy skills, rebounding from the pandemic and closing the achievement gap is evident,” said Read to a Child CEO, Paul Lamoureux.  “After hearing Mayor Wu read Malcolm Mitchell’s book today and seeing her interact with the Mildred Ave first graders, her love for Boston public school children is also extremely evident.”

In our school buildings, students also have access to a wide range of e-books and audio books. BPS also has a partnership with the Massachusetts Library System (MLS), which allows us to open more doors for students to learn more about the world around them. We are committed to BPS’ three-year library investment, improving libraries with new books, electronic resources, furniture, technology, and librarians.

“Our school is excited about its new partnership with Read to a Child and thankful for the organization providing so many volunteer reading mentors, as well as personal copies of My Very Favorite Book in the Whole Wide World,” said Kristina Reeves-Barber, Principal of Mildred Ave K-8 School.  “As part of the mentoring relationships that develop in the Read Aloud Mentoring Program, I look forward to even more of our students improving their reading skills and, thanks to the one-on-one time, developing a love of reading and improving their self-confidence.”

The Mildred Ave K-8 School is Read to a Child’s 5^th partnership with BPS, and is one of 16 public schools in greater Boston and one of more than 30 schools nationally, where Read to a Child operates its Read Aloud Mentoring Program. Read to a Child recruits, vets, trains and manages a force of thousands of corporate and community volunteers who read aloud (during lunch) one-on-one to children who are referred by their teacher into the program.

About the Read Aloud Mentoring Program

In the Read Aloud Mentoring Program an adult is partnered one-on-one with a student attending one of its partner elementary schools for a rewarding, weekly read aloud experience. The relationship lasts for the entire school year and often extends for multiple years through the end of fourth grade. The simple act of reading aloud to a child once a week, over time, ignites a love of reading, improves literacy and socio-emotional skills and can have a profound impact on the child’s future. The Read Aloud Mentoring Program also offers the adult a convenient, joyful, and meaningful way to give back. The program, which is available at no-cost to partner schools, is managed on-site at each partner school by a Read to a Child program coordinator and requires limited resources from each school.

About Read to a Child

Read to a Child (readtoachild.org) is a national literacy and mentoring non-profit that fosters a love of reading, improves literacy skills and supports socio-emotional well-being in students from under-resourced communities. Read to a Child collaborates with thousands of community and corporate volunteer mentors from more than 125 local businesses and organizations who read one-on-one to elementary students at more than 30 Title 1 schools in 18 under-resourced districts in the greater metropolitan areas of Boston, Detroit, Hartford, Los Angeles and Miami. Join the conversation on Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn.

Contact:

Kristen Baxter                                                              

Read to a Child                                                            BPS Communications                                             

401-316-2148                                                              617-635-9265

kristen.baxter@readtoachild.org                               communications@bostonpublicschools.org

For Immediate Release

Goal of $100,000 will Support Those Most Affected by Pandemic Learning Loss
through 3,000 One-on-One Reading Sessions with Caring Adults Nationwide

WELLESLEY, MA, March 1, 2023 – National non-profit literacy and mentoring organization Read to a Child^® today announced its tenth annual online fundraising campaign ‘Today a Reader, Tomorrow a Leader.’ Raising $100,000 in March, which is National Reading Month, will support 3,000 individual reading sessions for elementary school children in under-resourced schools across the country in the organization’s Read Aloud Mentoring Program. Please visit tinyurl.com/ReadersAsLeaders to donate or fundraise for Read to a Child.

This campaign may be Read to a Child’s most important ever, as schools and students attempt to recover from the effects of COVID-19.  As has been widely reported, pandemic learning-loss has wiped out nearly 30 years of gains in reading and has widened an already expansive opportunity gap between low and high-income students across the country.

According to the New York Times 2022 article A Reading Crisis, “Children in every demographic group have been affected, Black and Hispanic children, those from low-income families and those not fluent in English, have fallen furthest behind.”

To combat this crisis, Read to a Child recruits, trains and deploys adult volunteer reading mentors to Title 1 schools where they read aloud one-on-one to children during lunchtime, once a week. Reading aloud to children has been shown to be the single most important activity for eventual success in reading. This time spent with a caring adult provides students with the skills and confidence to succeed in school and life.

All proceeds from the ‘Today a Reader, Tomorrow a Leader’ campaign will fund the Read Aloud Mentoring Program, which pairs more than 1,000 at-risk elementary school children with volunteer reading mentors. This simple, yet profound, act has been shown to foster a love of reading, improve literacy skills and boost confidence in struggling children.

“Please consider joining visionary sponsors ArcLight Capital, Capital Group, Ernst & Young LLP (EY US) and Pitney Bowes in supporting this year’s campaign to help those most impacted by pandemic learning loss,” said Paul Lamoureux, CEO of Read to a Child.  “As a sponsor, fundraiser or donor you can join our army of volunteer reading mentors in making a huge impact in the life of a child from an under-resourced community. Please join us today.”

For more information about the ‘Today a Reader, Tomorrow a Leader’ campaign and how to participate or donate, please visit tinyurl.com/ReadersAsLeaders. For interested sponsors, please contact Kristen Baxter. The campaign runs from March 1 – 31, 2023.

‘Today a Reader, Tomorrow a Leader’ Campaign Sponsors

Visionary Sponsors: ArcLight Capital, Capital Group, Ernst & Young LLP (EY US) and Pitney Bowes.

Champion Sponsors: Integrity Services and the City of Hartford.

Trailblazer Sponsors: Alston & Bird LLP, Cindy and Rich Wasserman, Detroit Manufacturing Systems, Halloran Sage, Open Raven, Seyfarth Shaw LLP and Winston & Strawn LLP.

Advocate Sponsor: Improve Your Schools

About the Read Aloud Mentoring Program

In Read to a Child’s Read Aloud Mentoring Program, an adult is partnered one-on-one with a student attending one of its partner elementary schools for a rewarding, weekly read aloud experience. The relationship lasts for the entire school year and often extends for multiple years through the end of fourth grade. The simple act of reading aloud to a child once a week, over time, improves literacy skills and self-esteem and can have a profound impact on the child’s future. The Read Aloud Mentoring Program also offers the adult a convenient, joyful, and meaningful way to give back.

About Read to a Child 

Read to a Child (readtoachild.org) is a national literacy and mentoring non-profit that fosters a love of reading, improves literacy skills and supports socio-emotional well-being in students from under-resourced communities.  Read to a Child collaborates with thousands of community and corporate volunteer mentors from more than 125 local businesses and organizations who read one-on-one to elementary students at more than 35 Title 1 schools in 18 under-resourced districts in the greater metropolitan areas of Boston, Detroit, Hartford, Los Angeles and Miami.   Join the conversation on Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn.

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Contact:

Kristen Baxter

National Development Director

Read to a Child

401-316-2148

kristen.baxter@readtoachild.org