Burton Wants To Expand Reading Rainbow Access
2 min read
After the success of the initial Reading Rainbow Kickstarter campaign, LeVar Burton wants to go further.
The original goal of one million dollars was reached in less than a day, and the amount now stands at three-and-a-half million dollars with twenty-six days to go.
“It’s still a bit overwhelming because it’s so unexpected,” said Burton. “It’s just so unexpected. The first three days we averaged a million dollars a day.”
“The majority of these donations are the $5 and the $10 and the $25, and I want to thank everybody who has donated $1,” said Burton. “Please stop apologizing for not being able to give more because we’re getting it done. We’re going to be able to do so much good with this money.
“It’s that first generation of Reading Rainbow kids, the ’80s and ’90s babies whom I feel like I had a hand in raising them,” To see them grow up and really want to give back and make sure the succeeding generations are able to have Reading Rainbow as an influence in their lives …. I’m enormously proud of the millennials because they’ve embraced it. This is their Kickstarter now. We started it, but it’s y’all’s now!”
Now Burton hopes to raise five million dollars before the Kickstarter campaign ends. “We know that with five million we can really lock down universal access,” he said. “We’re only on two platforms right now. We’re on the iPad … and the Kindle Fire. So with five million we can be on mobile devices, we can be on Android, which is really important. We can be on gaming consoles [like] Xbox. … So this is really huge for universal access, reaching as many kids as we can.”
If the five million dollar goal is met, the Reading Rainbow school curriculum will be given away to 7,500 classrooms; six thousand more classrooms than was possible with the one million dollar goal. “This is really big,” said Burton. “It’s significant. We would be able to help significantly more kids discover the joys of literature and the written word with this additional money we have raised.”
The Reading Rainbow Kickstarter campaign is located here. Note that new perks have been added for donors.
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> We can be on gaming consoles [like] Xbox
Hmmmm…investing in education has always been a big thing for the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. I’m sure if the right people were contacted, they could have the software done for the Xbox on Microsoft’s dime.