Charity Ball raises £20,000 to improve reading skills and change lives
We are absolutely delighted to announce that our 20th Anniversary Charity Ball, held on Saturday the 11th of March at The Midland Hotel in Bradford, raised an amazing total of £20,000 for Reading Matters. This includes the crucial match-funding provided by Barclays Bank whose staff helped with the fundraising activities on the night.
The event was hosted by the charming Andrew Edwards of BBC Radio Leeds and was also attended by The Lord Mayor and Lady Mayoress of Bradford, Councillor Geoff Reid and his wife Chris and Naz Shah the MP for Bradford West.
The event was a resounding success and we would like to thank everyone who attended or helped with the organisation of the event in any way and those who generously donated items for the envelope draw or silent auction because without this support the event would not have been possible.
Do you happen to recognise the two people in the photograph below? They are Derek Phillips, one of our longest serving Reading Mentors and Christian Soda, a young man mentored by Derek when he was a student at Immanuel College. They may look familiar because we often use a photograph of them in Reading Matters‘ publicity materials. By complete chance they were unexpectedly reunited at the ball when Christian was working as a waiter at the event and Derek was attending as a guest! Rachel Kelly couldn’t resist the opportunity to bring them together and to share the positive story of their reading partnership with our delighted audience.
‘Early Bird’ tickets for our conference available until the 31st of March
The Ernest Cook Trust is helping us to reach more children
We are thrilled to have recently been awarded a grant by the Ernest Cook Trust worth £2,500. The Ernest Cook Trust focuses on supporting educational projects that benefit children and young people. Reading Matters will spend the grant on training many more Reading Leaders who are older pupils who act as role models and support younger ones with reading in schools. Reading Leaders aged 14 and over can achieve a level two CERTA accreditation in recognition of their valuable work.
Happy Reading!
From all the team at Reading Matters
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