ARISE2READ Brings Joy of Reading to Memphis Students

Executive Director of ARISE2READ Karen Vogelsang tells ‘Wake Up Memphis’ with Robyn Walensky how the non-profit organization is helping to beat the national statistic that shows “61 percent of low-income families have zero books in the home.”

Founded eight years ago by Donna Gaines, the Memphis program aims to help students learn to read in their critical early years, which is around the second grade.

“The third grade is a big transition year for students,” Vogelsang tells ‘Wake Up Memphis.’

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“Let’s face it, the way you fall in love with reading and the way that you have the opportunity to grow in your reading skills is to be able to have access to books at home,” she says.

ARISE2Read aims to provide those opportunities for young students and help them “build their at-home library.”

“What we do every year is we purchase books for all the students in our partner schools,” Vogelsang tells Walensky, “now whether we’re actually mentoring them or not, we’re still going to purchase books for all of those second graders in all of our partner schools, so we give them to the children at Thanksgiving and Christmas.”