It's the final nine days of our 2021 Annual Fund Drive, and we need your help to reach our goals before the end of the year!

Thanks to the Facebook fundraisers created by volunteers Christina Branom, Mark May, Matthew Jones, Alyson Beckman, Stan Thompson, Prince Selvage, Emily Sandersfeld, & Silvia Collins, as well as fundraising by the BTS ARMY, our overall 2021 Annual Fund Drive total is now $49,033 from 381 donors!

Here's how you can help us meet our $60,000 goal before our fund drive ends on the 31st:

DONATE TODAY!

Here's how you can help:

1) Make a pledge to donate by check or donate online today by visiting our 2021 Annual Fund Drive. Contributions of any amount are greatly appreciated!

2) Show your support by asking friends and family to contribute! Visit our 2021 Annual Fund Drive page and look under the "Help us Fundraise!" header for resources, including information on creating your own personalized fundraising page on Facebook, our handy donor sheet for raising money with your friends and co-workers, tips for fundraising, and so much more.

Once they know about Reading to Kids, many of your friends and family will want to donate - we just need you to ask!

JAN. 8TH READING CLUBS
RSVPS NOW OPEN!

On Tuesday we opened the January 8th reading clubs RSVPs, and we still have two volunteer spots to fill!

Collage of crafts from MacArthur Park Elem. students at our Dec. 11 Zoom reading clubs.
(Click the above image to see full sized!)

If you have ever read with us at any of our prior reading clubs (face-to-face or virtual), please RSVP now at our homepage at www.readingtokids.org or keep checking back to submit your RSVP for our "Mysteries & New Adventures" virtual reading clubs on January 8th!

We must continue to limit RSVPs for these virtual reading clubs only to returning volunteers - people who have volunteered with us at least once before at any of our previous face-to-face or virtual reading clubs. See below for how virtual clubs work.

The schools are closed for three weeks for their Winter Break, so we have somewhat fewer teacher hosts than usual for our Saturday, January 8th reading clubs.

If you check our website and find all reader spots are full today or over the next two weeks, please keep checking back so we'll have enough volunteers.

STAND-BY READERS WANTED!
If all spots are full you can also let us know at info@readingtokids.org if you are willing to be a "stand-by" reader for Saturday, January 8th. A "stand-by" reader is someone willing to fill in for any grade at any school if we have any last-second reader cancellations.

Stand-by readers must be available that Saturday morning from 8am to around 11am and willing to read via Zoom to any grade at any school. It's a really important role!

OPERATIONS VOLUNTEERS NEEDED!

Volunteers checking in for our Zoom reading clubs
on December 11th at Politi Elementary

For our virtual reading clubs we need experienced volunteers to be a second or third virtual Site Coordinator in our Zoom reading clubs for any of our schools.

This smaller Winter Break reading club is one of the best times to step into this important role - all training pleasantly provided safely at home!

Being a Site Coordinator guarantees you a (non-reading) spot at our next reading clubs, so please e-mail us at info@readingtokids.org if you can help us create wonderful reading clubs!

HOW VIRTUAL READING CLUBS WORK

Because LAUSD has not yet determined when volunteer organizations can return to on-campus events, we continue to use Zoom for these virtual reading clubs.

The reading clubs will be hosted by participating teachers at each school using their school Zoom accounts, but you will need your own Zoom account to join the reading club. If you don’t already have a Zoom account, you can sign up for a free, Basic account here: https://zoom.us/pricing

IMPORTANT: You will need to use Zoom from a desktop or laptop computer. The phone and tablet versions of Zoom do not have the necessary features for our virtual reading clubs.

Ideally, anyone who volunteers for these virtual reading clubs will be comfortable using Zoom. If you wish to test out your Zoom connectivity prior to the reading clubs, we encourage you to email us at info@readingtokids.org so we may do a brief test run with you before the virtual reading clubs.

The Friday before the reading clubs you will receive a link for a Zoom "check-in" session with your Site Coordinators that will begin promptly at 9:00 a.m. that Saturday. Click here to review the schedule for these virtual reading clubs.

Once you and your fellow volunteers are checked in, that same Zoom session will have a Zoom Volunteer Orientation / Virtual Reading Club Training that will start promptly at 9:15 a.m.

At 9:30 a.m. you and your volunteer partner will leave that Site Coordinator session and then join the teacher's Zoom session. The teacher will host the Zoom call and make you co-hosts. The first 30 minutes will be for troubleshooting and a prep session for just you and your reading partner and the teacher.

The kids will join that same reading club Zoom session at 10:00 a.m., and it will likely go until 10:30 or 11:00, at the teacher's discretion.

After the reading clubs end you will then rejoin your Site Coordinator's Zoom call for a brief wrap-up.

To screen share the book you will be reading with the children, you will need Adobe Acrobat or the free Adobe Reader from https://get.adobe.com/reader.

We will provide you a PDF of the read-aloud book so you can prepare for the reading clubs. You can see the read-aloud book titles for this month at https://readingtokids.org/Books/BooksMonth.php.

We will provide at the above link activities and simple craft ideas the kids can do at home. You would prepare to lead the kids in an activity and craft, though you may not actually do a craft, depending upon how the Zoom session goes. The kids may just want to talk to new faces!

SUPPORT US WITH AMAZONSMILE

Are you doing any gift shopping on Amazon.com? If you shop using AmazonSmile, they will donate 0.5% of your purchases to Reading to Kids!

Click here for easy directions on how to start using AmazonSmile!