Local literacy nonprofit needs your vote to win grant

by | Apr 28, 2022

Page Ahead, a statewide children’s literacy nonprofit headquartered in Crown Hill, needs your help to receive a $25,000 grant from State Farm to help improve their community—and all you have to do is vote! Starting April 27, U.S. residents who are 18 and older with a valid email address can vote for Page Ahead here.

Page Ahead has until May 6 at midnight to rally votes, and anyone voting is allowed up to 10 votes per day. On June 7, the top 100 vote-receiving causes will be announced at www.neighborhoodassist.com and a $25,000 grant will be awarded to each of the affiliated nonprofits.

Your vote is needed now (and tomorrow, and the day after that . . .) to make sure that Page Ahead’s amazing preschool program, Story Leaders, wins one of those grants.

Babies in families who receive government assistance are exposed to an average of 616 words per hour compared to an average of 2,153 words in better-off families. By the time children from low-income families enter preschool, they are already behind their peers. That’s where Page Ahead’s Story Leaders program comes in.

Based on research that shows shared reading can rapidly develop vocabulary and language skills, Story Leaders trains preschool teachers in shared reading techniques and provides students eight free books during the school year to take home, building home libraries and preliteracy skills and reinforcing the home–school connection.

In the Highline district south of Seattle, the most recent data shows that only 33 percent of low-income kindergartners meet kindergarten readiness standards. Bringing Story Leaders to Highline preschoolers in government-supported preschools will give those little learners a powerful head start on literacy!

About Page Ahead

Guided by the fact that literacy is essential to lifelong success, Page Ahead provides new books and develops reading activities that empower at-risk children. Founded in 1990, Page Ahead Children’s Literacy Program has given more than 3.8 million new books to more than 950,000 children through collaborations with schools, social service agencies, preschools, and early childhood programs across Washington. Through our programs, we work to erase the early reading gap for children in communities of concentrated low income before it becomes an “achievement” gap. Page Ahead has grown from a King County book giveaway project to the leading provider of children’s books and literacy services in the state, currently serving more than 20,000 students in sixteen counties, and our work has attracted attention nationwide: Page Ahead is a top-ranked early childhood education program on Charity Navigator, and we were recognized with a State Literacy Award by the Library of Congress in 202

Recent Posts

New offered: yoga for people living with mobility challenges and disability

New class offered: yoga for people living with mobility challenges and disability

New Phinney Station project offering community small business bonds for purchase

New Phinney Station project offering community small business bonds for purchase

Early outreach survey available for new project near 85th and Greenwood

Early outreach survey available for new project near 85th and Greenwood