United Way of Metropolitan Dallas will focus on all year long on childhood literacy. NBC 5’s Laura Harris tells us more.
The United Way of Metropolitan Dallas will celebrate 100 years in North Texas in 2025 and the nonprofit said that work extends to so many areas.
One of the areas they focus on all year long is childhood literacy.
“One of our premier programs is called ‘Once Upon A Month’. It’s a subscription program for families. It’s free and you can get a new book every single month from the time your child is born up to their fifth birthday,” Chief Strategy and Impact Officer Susan Hoff said.
The literacy initiatives don’t stop there. The United Way visiting schools across North Texas with guests readers, like former First Lady Laura Bush, to show young people there are so many people in their corner working for their success.
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Hoff said with that work, they have found another challenge. It doesn’t matter how hard a child is trying, if they are hungry, they won’t realize their full potential. Especially when it comes to them reaching their grade level benchmarks in reading.
“It’s about nourishing the mind and the body. We host summer meal programs where kids who usually qualify for free and reduces meals during the school year and come during the summer and get something to eat. We are several ‘read and feed’ locations to make this possible,” Hoff said.
The summer food program serves locations in Dallas, Collin, Rockwall and Denton Counties.
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“One of our key areas of focus again, is education. Our goal for the year 2030 is to ensure that more kids are reading on grade level by third grade and third grade is critically important in terms of a marker for learning,” Hoff said.
The United Way of Metropolitan Dallas has programs all year long, especially during the summer.
