On Tuesday,  March 10, I will be flexing my (non-existent) bowling skills at the 9th Annual Strikes, Spares, and Splits event, a night of bowling to benefit Read Ahead, a reading-based mentoring nonprofit serving elementary students throughout New York City.

Read Ahead is devoted to facilitating mentoring relationships that develop the social-emotional skills children need to successfully navigate school and daily life. Throughout the school year, Read Ahead matches corporate and community volunteers with young children in nearby elementary schools for weekly lunchtime mentoring sessions.

For the past few years, I've seen my friend Beth donate her time to the Junior Board of Read Ahead, and this year I wanted to do more than just donate by fundraising as well! 

Personal side note: My NJ school district offered toys, prizes, and even monetary incentives for us to read, which obviously is not always able to be the case in school districts of different economic circumstances! And the love of reading is so incredibly important to promote the sharing of knowledge and experiences across cultural/generational/etc.etc. divides!

Now that I'm working in NYC, I decided to take a more active roll in fundraising (along with Hayley Rivlin, Kinnari Shah, and Katie Saccente) and not just donating. So if you care about the mission above and have some extra change to donate (tax-deductible), feel free to do so!