Today, Learning A-Z®, a Cambium Learning Group company, announced the winners of its Spring 2022 Student Donation Challenge, held in collaboration with UNICEF Kid Power®, a program of UNICEF USA. Taylor Papotto's first-grade class at Colonel John Robinson School in Massachusetts donated the most meals to U.S. families in need, and Katherine Ho's seventh-grade inclusion class at Brookview Middle School in Ontario donated the most days of water to families in need around the world.
In total, students around the world enthusiastically donated over 1 billion stars through completing interactive reading activities on the Learning A-Z platform, resulting in 111,899 healthy meals distributed in the United States and 1,175,440 days of clean water donated to communities worldwide. On average, students who participated in the star donation drive read three times more books, advanced in reading levels more quickly, and showed much higher engagement than students in classrooms that did not participate in the donation challenge.
"We're amazed by the compassion of students and their desire to exercise empathy within the classroom to make a real-life impact," said Lisa O'Masta, president of Learning A-Z. "As we keep working to find new and effective ways for students to bolster their literacy skills within the classroom while giving back to their communities, we're grateful for both the participating classrooms and UNICEF Kid Power for making this donation drive possible."
This is the third time that Learning A-Z has teamed up with UNICEF Kid Power to motivate students to read and complete their work to support their communities. Participating students used Learning A-Z online instructional resources Raz-Plus®, Raz-Kids®, Headsprout®, Science A-Z®, Vocabulary A-Z® and Writing A-Z® to earn, and then donate, digital stars while completing assignments. Through a collaboration with UNICEF Kid Power, Learning A-Z is able to convert these donations into real-world impact. U.S. students redeemed their stars to provide healthy meals for those facing hunger. Students outside the U.S. redeemed their stars for water purification tablets to help communities in need around the world.
"Children want to make positive changes in their local communities and around the world," said Wendy Zachrisen, Senior Director of Strategic Planning and Operations at UNICEF Kid Power. "We're so proud of what Learning A-Z kids have accomplished-specifically how much they chose to help families in need-through this collaboration. The fact that we can also support children's literacy education is an added bonus," Zachrisen said.
Learning A-Z and UNICEF Kid Power first teamed up in the fall of 2020. To date, this powerful collaboration has provided students with three donation challenges that have resulted in truly amazing real-world impact. In total, Learning A-Z students have donated more than 5.7 billion stars they earned on the Learning A-Z platform, unlocking more than 458,000 healthy meals and 2.8 million days of drinking water for families and communities in need around the world. Moreover, students who participate find extra motivation to read and practice literacy with the purpose of helping others.
