Business News

Pitney Bowes Share the Message: Read! Program Spreads Fun of Reading and Learning

Friday 06. May 2011 - Pitney Bowes (NYSE:PBI), in partnership with national nonprofit Reading Is Fundamental, launched a successful volunteer program in April that provided reading enrichment activities to more than 2,300 children and engaged over 200 Pitney Bowes employees in five countries.

Share the Message: Read! is Pitney Bowes’s first global volunteer effort and was launched in conjunction with National Volunteer Month in the U.S. Through the program, employees in locations around the world participated in fun reading activities with children in kindergarten through 5th grade. Many of the events were led by the company’s Local Community Leadership Teams, which manage giving and volunteer initiatives in locations with high concentrations of employees.
Pitney Bowes employees have a strong history of giving back to their communities. Through Share The Message: Read!, employees experienced the joy of reading with children and gained a deeper appreciation of how important it is to engage students with reading in the early grades. Through this employee-driven volunteer initiative, Pitney Bowes and its employees further demonstrated their ongoing commitment to literacy and education. For many years, Pitney Bowes and the Pitney Bowes Foundation have been committed to supporting education programs that address the academic achievement gap.
“The importance of literacy and education resonates with all of us here at Pitney Bowes,” said Chuck Johnson, vice president of human resources, Mailing Solutions Management. “As a company, we are focused on the development of innovative solutions to help our customers connect better with their customers. So at the heart of it all, we value meaningful connections. We welcome the opportunity to inspire young children with the love of reading and learning. Making that important connection helps equip them with the tools they’ll need to grow and succeed.”
“Giving back to our communities is a core value at Pitney Bowes. Our employees worldwide support literacy and education initiatives by tutoring, mentoring and coaching students in a variety of education programs. Our employee volunteers were very excited to lead and participate in these engaging activities, and could quickly sense the strong, positive impact the program had on these young students,” said Kathleen Ryan Mufson, director, corporate citizenship & philanthropy and president of the Pitney Bowes Foundation.
The Pitney Bowes Foundation and Reading is Fundamental (RIF) partnership provided tool kits, books and volunteer activity guides to help employee volunteers develop fun, creative and memorable events that help motivate and drive excitement for reading both inside and outside of the classroom. This partnership is part of a longstanding collaboration between the two organizations to drive positive change in underserved school districts.
While National Volunteer Month is over, the Share the Message: Read! program continues. When completed, the program will have included 12 U.S. cities, as well as communities in Australia, Canada, India and United Kingdom.