At Everybody Wins! Los Angeles, we operate three distinct literacy and mentoring programs designed to cultivate academic success and the love of reading: Power Lunch, Readers Are Leaders, and Book Buddies. Each program offers a simple and flexible opportunity to volunteer in your community. Everybody Wins! offers training, logistical and administrative maintenance, supervision, supplies and support.
Power Lunch
Everybody Wins! signature program, Power Lunch, is a lunchtime literacy and mentoring program with a proven track record of improving reading skills.
- Each week, adult volunteers from businesses travel on their lunch breaks to an elementary school to share one hour of one-on-one reading with a low income child.
- Student-mentor pairs foster literacy skills by reading aloud, sharing favorite stories, and talking about books. Our program allows the student to cultivate their own personal relationship to reading.
- Volunteers commit to Power Lunch and their student for one year and are encouraged to continue the mentoring relationship, often working with the same student throughout their elementary years.
Readers Are Leaders
Following directly from the lunchtime literacy and mentoring model, Readers Are Leaders pairs upper grade student mentors with younger students for weekly one-on-one, one hour reading sessions. Readers Are Leaders helps both sets of students develop their love and appreciation for reading. Older students also gain an introduction to community service, gain a sense of responsibility in teaching a younger student, and progress with their own reading as they encourage their buddy to read.
Book Buddies
Our newest program, Book Buddies, creates another opportunity for our readers to foster mentorship and service in their communities. We provide a book geared towards a younger reader for each of our students who are then charged with passing along the book to a younger family member, neighbor, or friend. By asking our young students to nurture the love of reading in someone else, we hope to broaden our impact and enrich our students’ lives.