OAKLAND, Calif. - Golden State Warriors star Steph Curry and his wife Ayesha announced plans to build 150 "Little Town Libraries" in the Oakland area to promote neighborhood book sharing and childhood literacy.
The multimillion initiative is a joint effort between Steph and Ayesha’s nonprofit Eat. Learn. Play. and Little Free Library, a network of nearly 150,000 tiny libraries placed outside homes and businesses around the world for the purpose of book sharing.
We want to encourage kids to read by making it accessible, fun, and inspirational," Steph and Ayesha said in a statement.
According to the foundation’s press release, Oakland’s literacy rates are well below national standards, with only 15.4% of Black and 12.5% of Latinx elementary school students reading at grade level.
The program was initially announced during the second annual Workday Charity Classic, hosted by the Curry family and Workday, at the Stanford Golf Course.
Attended by athletes, celebrities, state and local leaders, and more, the event helped to raise millions toward improving childhood literacy in the Oakland area.
At Workday, we believe in supporting the communities where we live and work, and we admire the great efforts Stephen and Ayesha Curry and Eat. Learn. Play. are doing to provide vital resources for the local Oakland community,” added Aneel Bhusri, co-founder, co-CEO, and chairman, Workday. “We are a proud partner of this initiative and the positive impact it will bring to support childhood literacy in Oakland.”
Of the funds raised at the Workday Charity Classic, $1 million is set to go toward funding for teacher-led literacy projects in the Oakland Unified School District on the DonorsChoose platform.
Additionally, the raised funds will aid with providing 300,000 new books to kids and families based in Oakland.
We hope that these free, book-sharing libraries will help plant the seeds needed to continue growing a culture of literacy for the next generation in Oakland,” the Curry family said in a statement.
The program will be managed with the help of three local nonprofits — the Oakland Literacy Coalition, the Black Cultural Zone, and the Oakland Public Library.
Each of the three will oversee 50 of the mini libraries funded by initial two-year grants.
The first Little Town Library was unveiled last March at Franklin Elementary School of the Oakland Unified School District.
The program is the latest by the Curry family and their nonprofit to encourage child literacy in Oakland. Last September, Eat. Learn. Play. launched a bus to provide nutritious meals, groceries, books, and more to children in Oakland.
The nonprofit operates the bus with the Alameda County Community Food Bank, going on a regular route in the city and bringing it to special events.
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