Bentley is a fourth-grade student in the Cedar Valley Area. Bentley loves learning and school but he finds himself hopelessly behind his peers academically after the Summer break. Bentley comes from a low-income home that has no books for him to read. Sadly, Bentley’s story is not uncommon in the Cedar Valley area.

This is an issue that impacts a large portion of our community as only 69.5% of 4th graders in our community are proficient in reading and Black Hawk County reading proficiencies are at a staggering 61.5%. In situations like Bentley’s, low-income students lose an average of more than two months in reading achievement in the summer, by the end of fifth grade, disadvantaged children are nearly three grade equivalents behind their more affluent peers in reading.

This is an issue our organization, Readers Today Leaders Tomorrow, hopes to resolve. Our mission is to empower students of the Cedar Valley area by providing them with reading materials in order to eliminate Summer learning loss and education gap. Your support is key in solving this problem.

As an engaged community, we can mobilize to remove these barriers, expand opportunities, and help ensure the success of students in the Cedar Valley area. Our organization is seeking donations of both gently used books and cash to provide students with age-appropriate books. Thanks to some of our partnerships we can purchase new books for as low as $1 a book.

Readers Today Leaders Tomorrow

By Caleb Gipple

Readers Today Leaders Tomorrow

Removing barriers, expanding opportunities, and empowering students