Everybody Wins Iowa
This organization has already been registered
Someone in your organization has already registered and setup an account. would you like to join their team?Profile owner : s***********r@e***************a.o*g
Mission Statement
The mission of Everybody Wins! Iowa is to increase children’s success in school and life through one-to-one reading and mentoring experiences with caring volunteers. We achieve our mission by inviting volunteer reading mentors from the community into schools for reading experiences and interaction with elementary-age students, providing resources, including free books, to local children, and advocating the importance of reading aloud to children.
About This Cause
The signature program of Everybody Wins! Iowa is Power Read. Through these programs, volunteer reading mentors visit their student for an hour once a week during the students’ lunch, breakfast, or after school. Volunteer mentors talk with the students, read aloud to students, have students read aloud to them and instill positive attitudes about reading. The volunteers serve as role models, enhancing students’ self-esteem and encouraging their success through these consistent, weekly, positive interactions. Our program’s simple equation—one mentor, one child, one book at a time—produces powerful results. Everybody Wins! Iowa programming works with schools to reach students who are struggling with reading, are English language learners, and/or have demonstrated a need for a mentor. Our programs complement the education that the students are receiving by giving them a time where they can practice their reading skills outside of the classroom. The primary objective of the program is to increase children’s success in school by improving literacy and fostering a love of reading by pairing caring volunteer reading mentors one-on-one with a student for one hour each week during the student’s lunch. During this time, volunteers read aloud to students, have students practice reading aloud to them. The program focuses on improving the reading skills of children who read below grade level, are learning English as a second language, or display a need for mentoring for any reason--with a large portion of these children coming from minority or low-income households. Studies show that the typical middle-class child enters first grade with 1,000-1,700 hours of picture book reading time, while a low-income child averages just 25 hours. With the literacy gap continuing to widen as these children grow, it is vital for such programs to receive continued support in order to reach as many of these children as possible. The second objective of programming is to improve children’s self-esteem through one-on-one interactions with volunteer reading mentors. Our programs complement the education the students are already receiving by giving them an opportunity to practice and improved their reading while receiving positive feedback and encouragement. The confidence children in our program gain is an important step in developing both their success in the classroom and a lifelong love of reading. The third major objective is to continue to increase the number of volunteer mentors in the program. Because our programming is based on one-on-one interactions, recruiting more volunteers means that we are able to work with more children while expanding awareness of the literacy issues many of the children in our communities face.