Children's Reading Foundation of Appalachia Kentucky

Our good news can be summed up in a short story heralding the many blessings we have already received over the past 5 years. Our nonprofit was established through a private grant with the Elgin Foundation and later supported with a Department of Education Innovative Approaches to Literacy Grant. Through the IAL Grant, we are honored to have been able to offer two initiatives to our mountain children: READY! for Kindergarten, which provided free family/parent training sessions and over two thousand kits filled with free educational tools and Summer Read Up- Stop the Summer Slide, which allowed us to place almost fifty thousand good books into good hands!

Our greatest blessings are our beloved CRFA-KY volunteers and partners! Our community has embraced our mission during a time of great need within their families & businesses due to a sharp and steady decline in coal jobs and related incomes for our economy. Over the years, we have been blessed with many regular volunteers who have always been eager to donate their time to provide free childcare, sticker books, paint faces or plan book giveaways! They put up literacy displays, dress up as book characters, volunteer to read with a child, deliver books, take event photographs and write press releases. Our business and school partners host READY! and Read Up! events, attend meetings, promote early literacy and spend countless hours looking for ways to remove barriers that could prevent a child from reading on grade level by third grade. We currently have 2 office locations, graciously provided by our partners at the Middlesboro Mall and the city of Pineville. These offices have allowed us to have a face and a place for our movement, our mission and our message!

Deep in the heart of the Appalachian Mountains is where we live, where we work, and where we dream of a better tomorrow for our mountain people. Our need is a simple one. We must do whatever it takes to ensure that our next generation from the mountains of southeastern Kentucky is empowered with the solid foundation of early literacy that is vital in becoming the strong, educated, and informed parents & productive citizens that we know they are capable of becoming. We hold that power. We hold that promise. We hold that passion of prevention, for we are The CHILDREN’s Reading Foundation of Appalachia-KY.  Won’t you please help us continue to grow in attaining our goals & join us in our mission? We need you, and we thank you!