Reading and Beyond was founded in 1999 with just $20,000 in seed money from a group of community leaders at First Covenant Church. At its inception, 30 volunteers served 30 families with literacy tutoring and parenting programs. Reading and Beyond’s methods were recognized both locally and nationally and the organization was awarded funding to expand our programs. Reading and Beyond's Founder and Executive Director Luis Santana and Board Chair Donald Larson received recognition from Fresno Unified as a "model for other organizations". In 2004, our Afterschool/Literacy intervention program was expanded to include over 500 children at five school-based sites.
Shortly after in 2005, Reading and Beyond was one of only 4 organizations to receive national funding from the U.S. Department of Education to develop our Early Childhood Education program into a replicable model. To keep pace with this growth, our Board of Directors organized a strategic planning process in 2005 that launched Reading and Beyond into the next decade of service. In the proceeding 10 years, Reading and Beyonds Executive Director, Luis Santana, became the first person from the Central Valley to be selected for the James Irvine Leadership Award "for advancing innovative and effective solutions to critical state issues"; we opened dozens of sites in the Central Valley; we launched a workforce development program called the "Fresno Bridge Academy", which subsequently became the California Bridge Academies as the program expanded to multiple counties; and we moved our offices to the Mosqueda community center in south-east Fresno which historically has been a disadvantaged community.
In the past five years, Reading and Beyond has experienced explosive growth. In 2017 Reading and Beyond was awarded 4 million dollars for the Local Dental Pilot Project to increase Denti-Cal access and utilization in Fresno County. In 2019, Reading and Beyond celebrated its 20th anniversary in serving the central valley lifting neighborhoods out of poverty one family at a time. In addition, in 2019, Reading and Beyond was the first non-profit Preschool program in the central valley to have received a 5-star rating from Fresno County Office of Education's Early Stars Program.
Today, we are actively serving thousands of families and individuals throughout the Central Valley providing a broad range of services from cradle to career. We are working diligently to keep our work sustainable, effective, and relevant to the needs of the communities we serve so we can continue to serve families for the next decades.
COVID-19 IMPACT:
2020 was the year of uncertainty due to the COVID_19 pandemic. To meet the continuing needs of families, Reading and Beyond launched a Housing Assistance Program to help prevent families from being evicted, a food distribution program to help with food insecurities, and became part of the COVID-19 equity project group supporting COVID-19 testing and vaccinations throughout Fresno County.
Please enjoy this video that highlights some major milestones in our history as an organization: