RAISE A READER
Thousands of dollars collected to support literacy programs.
Hundreds of volunteers, celebrities, athletes and politicians hit street corners around Metro Vancouver on a chilly fall morning asking commuters and passersby for donations to raise money for literacy programs.
Wednesday marked the 17th annual Postmedia Raise- aReader Day, with all the money collected going to communitybased programs.
Downtown, Education Minister Peter Fassbender and Minister of Jobs, Tourism and Skills Training Shirley Bond handed out special editions of The Vancouver Sun. Canucks fans crowded around some of their favourite players — both current and former — as well as mascot Fin, who hugged them and posed for photographs.
Injured forward David Booth, who signed autographs at Georgia and Burrard, said the response was overwhelming. People walking by were stuffing his donation bag with loonies, toonies and bills.
“We’re here to support reading. That’s the whole point — to raise money to help kids learn how to read,” he said.
More than $ 27,850 was collected by Vancouver Sun volunteers Wednesday, bringing the total raised so far to $ 268,854, including sponsorship, corporate and other individual donations. These numbers will rise as funds continue to roll in.
No figures were available for the seven other Raise- a- Reader markets, but B. C. newspapers last year collected $ 1,038,608.
That included a $ 500,000 donation from the provincial government, which Fassbender said the government was matching again this year.
Sun editor- in- chief Harold Munro, who volunteered on Georgia Street with Vancouver police Chief Jim Chu and police spokesman Const. Brian Montague, described that special time when his children began to read.
“That moment when the light goes on, and they can finally read, and they start picking up books on their own for the first time and discovering new things and new worlds open up for them, it’s amazing. Then they move on to larger, more complicated books and it’s really great to see those ‘ a- ha’ moments for them when they discover they can read chapter books,” he said.
In one heartfelt donation, a volunteer received a small card with $ 100 inside and a touching note from Ronald McDonald House volunteer Stana Campbell, who donated the cash in memory of a 15- year- old boy who died from a brain tumour. In the note, Campbell said the teen was a voracious reader.
Chu said he believes increased literacy can help reduce crime.
“If young people learn to read and write, they can be contributing members of our society and that’s way better than a life of crime,” he said.
Montague, who is the father of two kids in elementary school, aged eight and 10, said reading is a big part of his family. “We always read bedtime stories before they could read. Their favourite was always the Curious George series.”
Pacific Newspaper Group president Gordon Fisher took his 11- year- old granddaughter Caia downtown to help raise money.
“She and I have been reading books together since she was two years old,” he said. “We started with The Cat in the Hat and that sort of thing and then we moved on. The really important thing is that this is a big day for us across Canada and we’re doing things not just for kids but for adults and helping people work their way into society in a good way.”
Bond said raising money for literacy is a cause dear to her heart. Some of her favourite moments in life involve reading to her two young grandsons, Caleb and Cooper, aged three and 19 months.
“They love Green Eggs and Ham,” she said. “As a grandmother, there is nothing I love more than reading to my grandkids and I can’t imagine having that feeling of not being able to share that moment with a child or a grandchild.”