Reading Shapes Passions

Millions of kids across America are struggling readers. In Florida, it’s affecting a significant part of the population, leading to lower high school graduation rates, college enrollment, and socioeconomic outcomes. The New Worlds Reading Initiative is a program created by the UF in partnership with Scholastic to help Florida kids who are not yet reading at their grade level. The program sends free books to kids for them to read at home.

In this campaign, it was important to really speak to kids and get them excited about reading. We needed a strong and eager kid host to take charge of the interviews, and we found that in Saoirse! It was also vital to speak to real people who use reading as a tool everyday - and who better to bring that to life than a local author and reading teacher like Regina. It was an honor to work on a project with such a strong mission and hope it helps make a change.