Stephen and Ayesha Curry recently hit the golf course for the kids. The couple hosted their annual one-day fundraising golf tournament at Stanford Golf Course in Stanford on Monday.
The couple‘s multimillion-dollar initiative is a part of the three-year partnership between their nonprofit foundation, Eat. Learn. Play. and Workday, a leader in enterprise cloud applications for finance and human resources. It also kicked off a new initiative to increase childhood literacy in Oakland and raise money and awareness for the cause.
“We launched Eat. Learn. Play. in 2019 with the singular goal of reaching kids and families in the areas that are critical to their future success – what they eat, how much they learn, and access to sport,” said Stephen and Ayesha Curry, co-founders, in a joint statement. “This year is the biggest investment we’ve made to date to support one of the pillars of our work and we are so grateful for Workday’s partnership to help us bring this effort to life.”
Where will the proceeds go to?
According to the foundation’s press release, the money raised from the Workday Charity Classic will be used to:
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Donate $1 million in funding for teacher-led literacy projects in the Oakland Unified School District on the DonorsChoose platform. This follows a $1 million donation Eat. Learn. Play. made last year.
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Help donate 300,000 new books to kids and families as part of our effort to ignite a culture of literacy in Oakland. These books will be distributed through Eat. Learn. Play. Bus and Little Town Libraries program, as well as with the Oakland Unified School District and other community partners.
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Create a “State of Literacy Oakland” report in partnership with the Draper Richards Kaplan Foundation, Oakland Literacy Coalition, and other community stakeholders. The report will provide a comprehensive landscape analysis of Oakland’s literacy opportunities and gaps. In addition, it will provide a blueprint for major future investments and advocacy work in our efforts to increase kindergarten readiness and third-grade reading levels across Oakland dramatically.
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The literacy crisis
Oakland’s literacy crisis largely affects Black and Brown communities. After more than two years of distance learning, only 15.4% of Black and 12.5% of Latino elementary school students are reading at grade level. Additionally, less than 20% of Oakland’s public elementary schools have a library, according to the foundation.
Over the next year, Eat. Learn. Play. plans to stock those libraries and use them as a distribution resource, inspiring children to read through frequent free book giveaways and events.
“Oakland kids, families, and teachers deserve the opportunity and resources to become proficient readers,” said the Currys.
