This just in from Everybody Wins!: Former Atlanta Falcons defensive back “Big Play” Ray Buchanan, will challenge 250 students at Centennial Place Elementary School to improve reading skills at an event on Thursday, Jan., 28, at 1:30 p.m. The event is in conjunction January being National Mentoring Month. Buchanan and Everybody Wins! Atlanta — one of Atlanta’s most unique mentoring organizations — in encouraging at-risk youth to reach for their dreams and that reading can help them succeed not just in school but in life.
Buchanan will read a popular children’s book to the group of 250 children from grades 2 through 5. Afterward, Buchanan will take questions from the children about his football career and why and how learning to read helped him succeed as a professional athlete and individual.
Children from low-income families begin school with diminished vocabulary and comprehension skills as compared to children from middle-income families. Without intervention, these students become a statistic in the troubling high rate of Georgia students who do not graduate from high school on time or at all—costing taxpayers and corporations millions of dollars annually.
Everybody Wins! Atlanta is a nonprofit organization devoted to promoting children’s literacy through Power Lunch: one-on-one shared reading experiences where at-risk, below average performing students are paired with caring business professional mentors. During the school year, the mentors spend one hour a week, reading to and together with students, to help improve their reading skills and enhance children’s self-esteem. For some students, it’s the only reading time out of the classroom that they receive. This is all in a big effort to expand the children’s possibilities for success in school and life.