Absolutely! We would love it if you would sponsor one of our young readers in the Read-A-Thon quest! On the YokyWorks fundraising homepage on 99Pledges, you can find a list of participants at the bottom of the page. Under All Participants, you can click the drop down menu to sort by Young Readers, and find a student to sponsor. You can also make a donation to the entire Read-A-Thon fundraiser on the YokyWorks fundraising homepage on 99Pledges (click the link below the donation progress bar that says "donate to main fundraiser page"). You can also make a flat donation through our website. We thank you for your support!

26 days, from Monday, 5/3, through Friday, 5/28

Anyone and everyone is welcome to participate! This includes current and former Milan Method students, parents, siblings, friends, family, colleagues and others in your network! The YokyWorks staff will be joining in on the fun as well! We hope this becomes a community event that unites us through the joy of reading. Collecting pledges is encouraged, but not a must to participate!

The sign up process is easy through the YokyWorks fundraising homepage on 99Pledges. Simply navigate to our homepage on 99Pledges, and scroll to the bottom of the page where you'll see "All Participants". Below the list of current participants, you will see a link that says "Not in the list? Add Participant". Click here, enter your first name and last initial, and your email address (so you can be eligible for prizes!). You're good to go! A email will be sent with your unique 99Pledges link that you can share with family, friends, and on social media to gain support! You can always find your unique link by navigating back to the fundraising homepage and searching for your name in the list of participants. Of course, we are here to help! Our team can help set you up -- just send us a message at contact@yokyworks.org.

After signing up, you should receive a message from 99Pledges with your unique link to share. You can also navigate to the YokyWorks fundraising homepage on 99Pledges, type you name into the "Search for Participant" bar below the donations progress bar, or at the bottom of the page where it shows all participants. Each participant has their own page so that they can share their unique link with potential supporters and donors. Family, friends, and others in your network can cheer on your progress through the event by supporting you directly -- either with a flat donation or a pledge for minutes read throughout the Read-A-Thon. If someone you know prefers to make a donation to the general fundraiser, they can do so on the YokyWorks fundraising homepage on 99Pledges (below the search bar for participants, there is a link that says "Donation to main fundraiser page"), or on our website.

You can absolutely just participate as a reader. Our main goal is to celebrate the gift of literacy, and encourage daily reading habits throughout our community. We encourage you to share your unique 99Pledges link with family and friends and on social media so that folks can support and cheer you on throughout the event, but collecting pledges is not a requirement.

No donation is too small (or too big)! Donations can be made in 2 forms: either a pledge per minute read for a particular participant, or a flat donation. Folks may consider $0.10 - $0.25 up to $1 - $2+ if pledging per minute read throughout the entire event. Others may prefer to do a flat donation of $50 - $100 up to $1,000 - $5,000+! It is totally up to you and your supporters!

Each donor who supports the campaign through 99Pledges will be asked to submit payment electronically through the 99Pledges platform, which is powered by PayPal. If your donor makes a flat donation, that payment will be processed imemdiately. If your donor makes a per minute pledge, their payment will be processed at the conclusion of the event after all minutes from the reading log have been entered. There is no need for you to follow up about any donations -- 99Pledges takes care of everything. 99Pledges is a free platform and does not take a percentage of your donations. We (Yokyworks) will pay the standard credit card and PayPal fees per transaction (2.9% + $0.30 per transaction). When making a donation via 99Pledges, you have the option to give a tip to the developers -- this money goes directly to 99Pledges and does not come to YokyWorks. In short, your data (like email addresses) and credit card information are secure through the 99Pledges platform. You can learn more about 99Pledge's privacy and security here.

Books, magazines, newspapers, online articles, graphic novels -- almost anything! It can be in physical form or on a digital device.

Visit our affiliate page on bookshop.org for lists of books that our current students and staff are reading, as well as a special curated list for this Read-A-thon! We encourage purchasing materials through bookshop.org as it helps to support local bookstores*! We ask that you write the book title or a description of your reading material on your reading log so we can share and provide inspiration to others throughout the Read-A-Thon. We plan to have a list of materials participants are currently enjoying on our website -- you may see something that sparks your interest! *YokyWorks is a Bookshop.org affiliate and will earn a small commission if you purchase books linked through our affiliate site.

This is a personal decision, and we want you to be ambitious and challenge yourself, while also setting your goal as something that is realistic to meet. If you are not already a daily reader, we suggest a goal of 15-30 minutes per day. If you are an emerging reader, this goal might start closer to 15 minutes per day. If you are an avid reader, you may set your goal to be 60 minutes or more per day. Whatever you decide, just try your best to aim for that goal while reading everyday!

That's okay! In your reading log, record however many minutes you did read, and try to get back on track and reach your goal the next day. If you're having trouble finding the motivation to read, try picking up a new/different book or magazine, or try reading in a brand new area. You've got this!

A copy of the reading log can be found here. You can either print it out and fill it in each day by hand, or you can electronically fill in the pdf and save it on your computer. Be sure to download the pdf if you plan to fill it in electronically! At the end of each Friday of the Read-A-Thon event, send a picture (if you're hand writing it) or a digital copy of your reading log to Jen at contact@yokyworks.org. The 4 dues dates for reading logs are 5/7, 5/14, 5/21, and 5/28.

Your donations will benefit students in numerous ways: Provide financial aid to our students There are many barriers to literacy that a child must overcome, but we believe that money shouldn’t be one of them. Our financial aid program helps to subsidize the cost of our 1:1 sessions for students without the means to afford the services they need to reach their full potential. Our long-term goal is to provide our program for any student who needs it, regardless of their financial situation. While our organization is currently too small to meet this goal, we have a great financial aid program that 15% of our students are benefiting from. Our goal is to double the size of the financial aid pool by the end of the year. Your support will allow YokyWorks to bring state of the art reading instruction to more students. Attract and retain highly-qualified instructors While the brain is wired for language, reading is not a natural process. Our instructors undergo a rigorous training process and are provided with continuing education in order to meet the needs of their students. Your support will allow us to hire experienced educators and streamline our training program as we scale and grow. Serve more students During the Covid-19 pandemic, our lean team retrofitted our in-person program for online learning expanding the reach of our instruction. By the end of 2021, we hope to grow our student enrollment by 400%. Your support will provide our staff with the resources to achieve this ambitious goal.

Below are a few ways we have thought of, but we encourage you to get creative! Email you unique 99Pledges link to family, friends, and others in your network so they can support you throughout the campaign Share you unique 99Pledges link on social media (parents can share for their little ones!) Post about the Read-A-Thon, share updates on what you're currently reading or how you're crushing your goals, and be sure to tag us! YokyWorks is now on social media so be sure to like/follow us on Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn! We can't wait to see your posts and tags!