– San Francisco to Encourage Early Literacy
Washington D.C. Today, online retailer Beautyjar.com announced its April Community Matters partner: Raising A Reader - San Francisco (RAR – SF). RAR - SF is a take-home book bag program, which successfully reaches a tough, critical population: low-income families where parents have limited literacy skills or where English is a second language.
The Raising A Reader mission is to foster healthy brain development, parent-child bonding and early literacy skills critical for school success by engaging parents in a routine of daily “book cuddling” with their children from birth to age five. To support this work, Beautyjar.com will contribute a percentage of all sales for the month of April. The founders of Beautyjar.com chose the early literacy program due to its clear mission and impressive results. Raising A Reader's mission is to give every child in San Francisco an equal opportunity at life success by promoting daily book reading between parents and their young children. This sharing leads to stronger families, increased brain development, and a love of reading. RAR - SF targets children from 0-5 years of age, as this is the vital development window when 90% of brain growth occurs. RAR - SF has demonstrated a 471% increase in the percentage of low-income parents sharing books with their children five times or more each week.
“Literacy-rich environments can play a major role in strengthening families and breaking the cycle of poverty. They are also essential for ensuring healthy brain development,” said Betsy Keever, Acting Director of Raising A Reader – San Francisco. She points out that one in three children in the U.S. enters kindergarten without basic pre-reading abilities, according to a study by the Carnegie Corporation. Consequently, they never develop strong reading skills -- a key factor in determining high-school graduation and lifelong success.
“We’re passionate about literacy and education,” said Nana Osei, Beautyjar.com founder and community advocate. “As a small businesswoman, I know it’s important to support organizations doing solid work in child development.” “We’re excited to see business partners stepping up to support good programs,” said Betsy Keever, Acting Director of Raising A Reader – San Francisco. “We’d love to see these connections made more often.”
For more information about Raising A Reader – San Francisco, please visit: http://uwba.org/matters/factsheets/RAR.pdf or contact Betsy Keever, Interim Director, 415.808.4343. About Beautyjar.com Beautyjar.com is a Washington D.C metropolitan based online beauty retailer. The online boutique offers customers an exclusive range of discounted popular bath, body and skin care products. With such notable brands as Aveda, Ahava, Korres Natural Products, Laboratoire Remede, Marc Jacobs, and Gucci. With more than 300 unique brands, and new products added daily, Beautyjar.com offers customers access to safe and secure online shopping at competitive prices. The philosophy behind Beautyjar.com is to provide a vast shopping selection all while making buying simple, fast and fun. Additional information can be found at www.beautyjar.com.
