Media Releases

April 21, 2008

M&T Bank steps forward to enhance children's literacy in Rochester

Bank initiates a grant to help children increase reading skills; United Way gears up for Day of Caring literacy partnership with the City of Rochester

Rochester, NY – M&T Bank announced today that it is awarding $10,000 through United Way to fund a summer literacy program in Rochester, and to launch a new program geared to ensure classrooms have ample supplies of books for young students. 

The $10,000 grant helps kick-off a special United Way Day of Caring theme this year – education and literacy. United Way and the City of Rochester are partnering to host additional education and literacy volunteer projects at several city schools for the day. 

“Literacy is one of the key stepping stones to academic and economic success, and the United Way Day of Caring will generate resources for two important literacy initiatives,” said Dan Burns, president of the Rochester Division of M&T Bank, and chair of United Way’s Community Impact division.  “If we all rally around this issue as a community, we can improve early childhood literacy and make a difference in the lives of so many children."

Half of the grant money from M&T Bank will be earmarked for a literacy program being developed by the Center for Youth Services in five city schools.  The other $5,000 will go to the Rochester Education Foundation (REF), which is launching a new program to help city educators obtain reading books for literacy events in city school classrooms and libraries—including book clubs, parent-child reading events and school-wide reading activities.

“This generous donation will help us to launch ‘Teachers Choose Books,’ a way to improve our existing book donation program—through which more than 15,000 new books have been distributed to students for home libraries and to school libraries,” said Patricia Braus, executive director of the Rochester Educational Foundation.  “We’ll now be able to offer quarterly opportunities for educators to apply for new books for student home libraries, special school opportunities and library collections.”

M&T Bank and United Way are also encouraging new book donations, which will be delivered to city school classrooms and libraries for the summer literacy program and REF efforts. 

Starting this week, you can donate new books into drop boxes at the Clarion Riverside Hotel lobby in downtown Rochester to help complement this effort.

“We’re incredibly honored that M&T Bank has offered this grant. Ultimately, it translates to more children being able to have the tools they need to read and succeed,” said Peter Carpino, President of United Way of Greater Rochester.  “We know that when children can read at grade-level by the end of third grade, they are much more likely to graduate from high school.”

The 2008 Day of Caring falls on Thursday, May 8, and promises to again be Rochester’s single-largest volunteer effort. Thousands of people spend the day painting, weeding, raking, and much more. On average, volunteers each year complete about a million dollars worth of projects— an invaluable help to nonprofit agencies that may not otherwise be able to afford to have them done.

This year, Day of Caring volunteers will be honored with a free lunch on May 8th, generously hosted by the Clarion Riverside Hotel.

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