Schoolreaders RACE FOR READING challenge smashes target by travelling over 35,000 miles around the world to provide school children with essential reading support.
Participants from across the country including many of the Tritax team, have come together to take part in Schoolreaders RACE FOR READING challenge to help raise vital funds to support reading in primary schools. Between 31 March and 19 June 2021, participants have run, swum, walked and cycled a distance in excess of the circumference of the globe - travelling over 35,000 miles and raising over £35,000 in 80 days. The money raised will provide over 2,500 of the country’s most vulnerable children with reading support, and this figure is still rising.
As a consequence of school closures during the pandemic Schoolreaders, which places volunteers in primary schools to provide children with weekly one-to-one reading sessions, is needed now more than ever. Over the course of the last year the charity has also seen a huge rise in volunteer registrations and aims to support more than 20,000 children with a one-to-one reading session each week by the end of the 2021/22 academic year.
Celebrities including Sharon Davies, Nick Ferrari, Sophie Kinsella, Ian Rankin and Schoolreaders RACE FOR READING champion Levison Wood, took to social media to show their support for the campaign.
Colin Godfrey – CEO, Fund Management, Tritax Big Box adds: “As long-term partner and sponsor of Schoolreaders’ first RACE FOR READING challenge, we are absolutely delighted with what has been achieved. The money raised will help to address the surge in children’s illiteracy following school closures during the pandemic, with one in ten primary schools in England now asking for Schoolreaders’ support. Many such schools are located in the heart of the communities that surround our assets and we see no better way to help drive local social and economic value, than by enhancing the long-term prospects of many of the country’s most disadvantaged children through supporting their all-important reading skills”.
Jane Whitbread, Founder of Schoolreaders comments: “We could not be more thrilled with the extent to which so many have stepped up and embraced what is hopefully the first of many Schoolreaders RACE FOR READING challenges. We would like to thank the effort and generosity of all involved - from our sponsor Tritax Big Box to our Race for Reading champion Levison Wood and last but not least of all the participants - without which none of this would have been possible. We will now be able to provide an extra 2,500 children with reading support that will materially enhance their education and subsequently their lifelong prospects.”
Participants are still able to receive donations via online fundraising pages. Every £15 donated will support another child’s reading for a whole year.
To sponsor the Tritax team please visit https://www.raceforreading.org/teams/tritax-team and to find out more about the campaign, please visit www.schoolreaders.org
