December 2022 newsletter

You helped us get a grant, preschool reading, and more!

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First Tech’s Season of Giving: You did it!

Your votes helped power us to victory in the First Tech Season of Giving contest. Hooray! Because of your stellar efforts, Page Ahead will be receiving a $14,000 grant from our friends at First Tech Federal Credit Union (yes, $14,000—nearly twice the planned original amount of $7,500!).

Because of your votes, this grant will build home libraries of 12 books each for 280 students—that’s 3,360 brand-new books on kids’ shelves that weren’t there before. That’s the equivalent of building home libraries for every single kindergartner, first grader, and second grader at a school like Mark Twain Elementary in Federal Way—pretty powerful stuff!

Thank you to our community of supporters and champions of children’s literacy! And, especially to First Tech!

Give the gift of reading in someone’s honor

Have someone who is just impossible to shop for? Or someone who just doesn’t want any more “stuff”? A donation to Page Ahead in their honor is the PERFECT way to make sure your gift sparks joy!

When you make a gift to Page Ahead through the above link, you’ll receive a special gift certificate you can share with your recipient.

You can either send them the certificate digitally or, if you really want to emphasize season’s readings, you can print it and slip it into a book you’re giving them!

What your support makes possible: preschool reading

We recently shipped copies of Kitten and the Night Watchman, Caps for Sale, and Not Norman to 1,503 preschoolers across Washington as part of our Story Leaders program. Teachers read each book using shared-reading techniques we train them in, and kids get copies of each book to take home! Learn more here.

Save the date for A Taste for Reading

Please mark your calendar for Page Ahead’s A Taste for Reading benefit luncheon on April 18, 2023. We’ll be in person at the Seattle Westin as well as streaming online, and we can’t wait to celebrate the power of reading with you!

Find out about sponsorship opportunities 
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Microsoft Give

During the month of October, more than 70 Microsoft employees volunteered to make bookplate packets and design bookmarks for our literacy programs. When children select a new Page Ahead book, they write their name on a bookplate sticker and affix it to the inside cover.

Not only did Microsoft provide us with amazing volunteers, but the company also matched the volunteer hours with a monetary donation to Page Ahead. This donation will help give more than 420 new books to kids in need. Thank you, Microsoft employees!

Microsoft teams made bookplate packets at the Redmond campus in October 2022—one team did so many that the leftover rolls from the bookplate stickers made a pretty impressive pyramid!

All of us here at Page Ahead send warm holiday wishes to youour heroes!

Thanks to your advocacy, financial support, and volunteering, thousands of kids in communities of concentrated low income across Washington State experienced the joy of choosing great new books to read and building their home libraries in 2022. What a wonderful gift—thank you!

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kindergartner surrounded by his new home library
a student wearing a mask reads her new books at her desk