Hi friends and family,

I’m raising money to support students and teachers at DeDiego Community Academy in Chicago. My goal is to raise $1,000 to provide students with year-long literacy based mentorship programming and books for their at-home and classroom libraries, giving them the resources they need to succeed.

The need is important:

- Only 41% of students in Chicago Public Schools are proficient in reading.
- 61% of low-income families have no age-appropriate books at home.
- 82% of CPS elementary schools lack a functioning library.

Working in the Schools (WITS) is changing that. As the largest provider of literacy mentorship to CPS schools, WITS puts books directly into students’ hands and provides weekly one-on-one reading support to help them thrive.

By year’s end, 62% of WITS students read at or above grade-level, nearly double the rate of 37% for all students at WITS schools.

80% of WITS-K teachers reported their students had developed specialized reading interests throughout the year, an increase of more than 44% from the beginning of the 2024-25 school year.​

91% of WITS students reported having positive attitudes towards reading at the end of the 2024-25 school year, up from 73% at the beginning of the year.

With your donation, we can distribute 10,000+ books and keep critical literacy mentorship free for thousands of students.

Every dollar counts. Thank you for the support!