Raising A Reader MA launched at Revere’s Beachmont School with help from KPMG
“Do you want to get your books?”
“Yaaaaaay!”
The 15 children in Ms. Ebner’s integrated pre-kindergarten classroom at Revere’s Beachmont School shrieked with excitement as their white organza gift bags from KPMG were passed out the morning of Wednesday, November 9th. One by one the children were called forward to receive their bag filled with books, crayons and notepads. Children, like four year-old Zineb, ran to open their bags with their parents who were visiting the classroom for their orientation to the Raising A Reader MA program. As Zineb searched through the bag of books her ten month old brother, who sat on his mother’s lap during the Raising A Reader MA orientation, turned the pages with her.
KPMG donated the gift bags and books to Raising A Reader MA as part of their commemoration of the anniversary of the September 11th attacks on the World Trade Center. Employees at KPMG in Boston filled more than 500 of the gift bags with specially selected books and toys for pre-school-aged children. The bags were then given to Raising A Reader MA to distribute to the high need families and children they serve across the Commonwealth. Raising A Reader MA, whose mission is to give every child (ages 0-5) an equal opportunity for achievement by engaging parents in a routine of daily book sharing, offers a three-part, evidence-based program for increasing home book sharing through partnerships with public pre-kindergartens, day care and pre-school programs like Head Start, and home visiting and playgroup programs like Early Intervention. A cornerstone of their model is the Red Bag Book Rotation Program, which circulates dozens of high quality children’s books into the homes of families each week.
Beachmont teacher Elizabeth Ebner thanked Raising A Reader MA and KPMG for the gifts, which helped kick off the Raising A Reader MA program in her classroom. “I am excited about the program because Raising A Reader provides high quality books. By providing the families with high quality books, the program is sending a message to the children in my classroom that reading is a valuable activity.” Echoing the excitement of Ms. Ebner, Valda, a mother whose son John is in Ms. Ebner’s classroom, said “This bag will be like bringing home a new toy every week. He’ll treat the books so good knowing that they have to be returned to school and also knowing that he’ll be able to take new books home. He
‘ll love it!”
Valda, a mother of a student in Ms. Ebner’s classroom, looked through the bags from KPMG as her two children looked on excitedly.