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Courtesy Ruben Castro,

In celebration of National Literacy month, H-E-B Plus! is launching a new statewide early childhood literacy program called Read 3 to help address a major challenge we are facing in Texas.

 Today, one in every four children in the state is living in poverty.  There is a strong correlation between poverty and reading proficiency, so it is not a coincidence that Texas has one of the country’s highest rates for caregivers not reading regularly to children under the age of five – an estimated 26% of kids! 

 What this means is that many young Texans are not getting the early exposure they need to letters, words, shapes, colors and numbers which places them at a disadvantage before they even start school.  Studies show that a child living in poverty is only exposed to a third as many words as their middle-income peers – 10 million words versus 30 million.  They only have 100 hours of reading time compared to over 1,000 hours of reading time for other children.  And they have less than five age-appropriate books in their homes compared to an average of 50 in a more affluent home.

 Eighty percent of an adult’s vocabulary is developed by age five, so not only do these kids start school behind, they tend to stay behind.  Worse, too many never finish school at all. 

 We simply can’t allow this to continue in our great state.

 The Read 3 program launching in September will focus on educating parents and caregivers about the need to read to their children a minimum of three times per week. H-E-B’s goal is to provide Texas families with the tools and resources they need to prepare early learners so that all children can begin their school experience with an equal opportunity to succeed.  There are three ways we think we can help – by supporting learning and literacy in our stores through H-E-Buddy and the addition of Learning Centers similar to the ones that exist today in Tomball and Laredo, by providing access to free and affordable books, and through the development of a community outreach program that supports family literacy.

 With these three objectives in mind, we will officially launch the Read 3 campaign with Literacy and Education Total Store Event scheduled for September 7^th through the 20^th.  

 We will also host book drives in each of our stores with a goal to collect 1 million books to redistribute to the communities we serve through our annual Feast of Sharing Dinners and other local literacy efforts.  Customers will be encouraged to donate both new and gently used books which will be collected and shipped back to the warehouse for sorting through the normal returned goods process.

 The Publishing Department is also hosting a “Buy one; Give one” promotion during this event.  When Customers buy select books, H-E-B Plus! will donate a book to the non-profit organization called “First Book” to provide books to physicians and hospitals for them to distribute to children who need them.  In addition, we will be promoting local library memberships and nominations for the 2012 Excellence in Education Awards at many of our scheduled demos. 

 Of course the two-week event would not be the same without the star of the show – H-E-Buddy.  He will introduce kids and parents to the Buddy Book of the Month club which will live in our stores for the rest of the year.  Every month, Customers will be able to buy the Buddy Book of the Month at a deep discount and kids can read the recommended book to earn buddy points and more prizes! H-E-Buddy will host a story time where kids can follow along as a volunteer reads the book of the month.  H-E-Buddy will also be featured in a series of in-store scavenger hunts, challenging kids to find numbers, letters and shapes in our aisles.  Once completed, kids can turn in their findings for prizes and H-E-Buddy Bucks