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Thank you for your interest in the Appalachian Literacy Initiative!

A child who learns to read proficiently has a great advantage over one that does not. If children lack access to books, they do not learn to read as well.

Sounds obvious, doesn’t it? It’s substantiated by a lot of current research—if you’re interested, you can find out more by following the links on our page—but really, it comes down to this: underprivileged  children need more access to books than they currently have.

We live in Appalachia, a beautiful part of the country with a history of entrenched poverty. There are small rural schools here without libraries. Towns without libraries. Children who grow up without ever owning a book of their own.

We are changing that. We want to break this cycle.

Our flagship program gives students in enrolled classroom four books per year, of their choice from our booklist, to keep. We started in 2018 with fourth grade and have since added third and fifth grades. Every year we’ve increased the number of schools we serve. We also help teachers acquire books for their classrooms and sometimes offer mobile book fairs where students can choose books for free.

We’d love your help and support. We know this is needed.