How the Startup Santa Football Competition Can Help You Change Kids’ Lives With Books
It’s almost that time of year again! For the third time in a row, Boomsourcing is teaming up with Salt Lake Chamber, Silicon Slopes, and the Utah County chapter of United Way to host Startup Santa. We’re excited to once again lead this incredible charity drive in 2018 because we know what great work we’ve accomplished together in the past two years.
Kids Need Access to Books to Have a Better Chance of Success in Life
The focus of Startup Santa is a recognition of one very important fact: successful people have libraries.
In Utah, there are over 300,000 children living at or near the poverty level. Over two-thirds of them are at risk of what’s known as intergenerational poverty, a vicious cycle that’s difficult to escape. That’s because they don’t have access to as many educational resources as kids in middle- or higher-income families and communities.
The consequences are startling:
2 out of every 3 Utah children living in low-income families and attending 3rd grade are not proficient in language arts.
Part of that is because
Low-income Utah families have 1 book per 300 children. Middle income Utah families have 12 books per 1 child.
That’s a huge disparity. And it causes problems.
35 % of children who are poor, living in neighborhoods of concentrated poverty, and not reading at a proficient level by the time they’re in 3rd grade do not graduate from high school.
So you can see that the problem feeds on itself. It’s hard to buy books for your kids if you couldn’t learn how to become successful enough to afford them.
Play on the Field at Rice-Eccles Stadium by Collecting Books for Kids!
How do we propose to address this issue? We who have the means to help are doing all we can to bring the blessings of literacy and access to high-quality information to the kids who need it most. Here’s how we’re going to do it:
Startup Santa is a state-wide children’s book drive where Utah companies compete against each other to see who can donate the most new books and support childhood literacy programs for children living in low-income families. These books will be given as gifts to children all over the state, so let’s show them how much the community cares!
The joy of giving is probably incentive enough, not to mention the benefits of raising everyone’s chances of success by inspiring the next generation of creative entrepreneurs from a young age. But we’re taking it a step further.
Any company that rounds up at least five books will get to participate in an insanely fun field goal competition. This will take place on the field at the University of Utah’s Rice-Eccles football stadium, on Friday, October 26, 2018.
Yes, you read that right.
That famous field is normally restricted to players and team staff only. For football fans, this is the chance of a lifetime. You can launch a winning kick over the goalposts while doing something seriously awesome for kids who need it.
To register your company for Startup Santa 2018, start here.
