Our 12-year adventure at Reading Village has been full of pride, joy, accomplishment, and challenges overcome. Thanks to your support, our Leaders and Readers Program has established a strong record of success, reaching over 12,000 children with reading and literacy activities, and transforming the lives of more than 150 teens who have been a part of the program.
However, as you may already know, unforeseen institutional barriers have led our Board of Directors to make the difficult decision to close Reading Village. With the donations we've received over the last few months we were able to secure the necessary funding that will ensure the remaining 67 teens in our program are able to graduate from high school.
Because of you, these young people will have the opportunity to join the ranks of our graduates who now include a lawyer, teachers, bankers, nurses, small business owners, and other professionals. By securing these good jobs, our graduates are able to provide services to their communities, pursue a higher standard of living and better provide for their families. In turn, this newfound economic security often enables their younger siblings to study, too.
I hope you feel as proud as we do that the ripples of our impact are broad, and will continue to spread for generations to come.
Thank you for your support over these many years. You brought to life a vision of creating opportunities for marginalized children and youth to fulfill their potential, impacting the lives of thousands, now and for years to come!
With deep gratitude and blessings for the New Year,
Linda Smith
Spring is in full swing, but we're already looking ahead to summer! July is an exciting month for Reading Village with our biggest fundraising day of the year (July 18!) AND our annual Learning Journey trip to Guatemala (July 19 - 26).
We'd love to extend the invite for you to travel with us this summer. Here are 3 reasons to consider...
This is the final week to register for the trip!
Thank you for your support and have a wonderful holiday weekend.
Kind Regards,
Reading Village Team
Thanks to you, this February we are feeling the love! Your generosity of heart never ceases to amaze us and continues to create positive change in rural Guatemala. With your support, we were able to provide education and leadership training to 95 teens last year and 20 of those teens graduated high school. For some, they are the first person in their family to reach that goal!
What you may not know is that in our partner communities, 90% of youth never make it to high school due to the costs and/or their families needing them to work instead. But because of you, the teens in our program (97 this year!) are studying specialties like accounting, teaching, IT and more. They're working hard to create a better life for themselves and their communities. Something else you may not know is that with a high school diploma in the speciality of their choice, youth are able to apply for professional jobs immediately upon graduating high school. These jobs can double their family's income and put them on a path to break the cycle of poverty.
You make all of this possible. We hope that knowing of the change you're creating in the world warms your heart as much as it warms ours.
On behalf of everyone at Reading Village, especially the youth and children in Guatemala: thank you for sharing your kind heart with us!
Warm wishes,
The Reading Village Team
Have you ever wondered how you can make a difference in the world? We hope you’ll remember that through your partnership with Reading Village you already are! Here are three lives you’ve directly impacted in rural Guatemala:
Susana, 19, who is taking care of her four younger siblings while she finishes high school, explains how thanks to Reading Village supporters “even with my parents living in the United States, I have been able to succeed in reaching my goals. I’ll graduate with a degree in accounting and be able to continue helping my siblings.”
Maria, 17, says if it weren’t for Reading Village, she’d be working instead of studying. As the youngest of five, her parents just didn’t have the money to send her to school. You helped change her future!
Deysi, 16, says: “I’m truly happy to be a part of this program which has sparked a fire within me and continues to open doors to build my dreams and future. My family and I are grateful from the bottom of our hearts to each and every supporter and send our sincerest thanks to you for being the builders of my dreams.”
This Thanksgiving we’re giving thanks to you! Thank you so much for choosing to change the world with Reading Village.
In gratitude,
The Reading Village Team
WE'RE STRONGER THANKS TO YOU
Thanks to more than 150 supporters, we raised just over $53,000 during last month's GlobalGiving Match Day campaign! This gave us first place out of more than 500 organizations who participated on July 12th. We think that's pretty amazing! We think YOU are pretty amazing. The funds you invested are being used to deepen our impact in Guatemala, providing scholarships to teens just like Florecita so that they can work to break the cycle of generational poverty for their families and communities. We believe that every one should have the chance to fulfill his or her potential and because of your partnership, we're making a difference one teen at a time!
We hope you'll take two minutes to get to know Florecita by watching this video.
In case you didn't get to meet Florecita last month, we wanted to be sure to share her story again today. Because of indigenous cultural traditions that dissuade women from earning money for the family, 15-year-old Florecita almost didn’t get to attend high school. The men in her family struggle to support her family of 10 and didn’t have the funds to pay the $500 annual high school fees. Thanks to Reading Village's scholarship to finish high school and leadership development workshops, Florecita explains that her ultimate goal once she graduates is “to have a job so that I can save money to provide my children with a good education and show them that they can do anything."
Thank you for being a part of the Reading Village family and partnering with us to change the world!
Project Reports on GlobalGiving are posted directly to globalgiving.org by Project Leaders as they are completed, generally every 3-4 months. To protect the integrity of these documents, GlobalGiving does not alter them; therefore you may find some language or formatting issues.
If you donate to this project or have donated to this project, you will get an e-mail when this project posts a report. You can also subscribe for reports via e-mail without donating.
We'll only email you new reports and updates about this project.
