Stories

In March, SHARE Charlotte’s Spotlight Series focuses on local organizations working to improve literacy and school readiness in Charlotte. These organizations do everything from provide free books, to reading support to free preschool. See who they are and find ways to help. #CLTLovesToRead

Assistance League of Charlotte
Feeds, clothes, mentors and educates through programs Operation School Bell, Operation Check Hunger, Mecklenburg County Teen Court, Scholarships and Outreach. 

Augustine Literacy Project
Improves the reading, writing, and spelling skills of low-income students who struggle with literacy by providing free, long-term, one-on-one instruction from highly trained volunteer tutors. 

BELL (Building Educated Leaders for Life)
Helps transform the academic achievements, self-confidence and life trajectories of children living in under-resourced communities by collaborating with schools, school districts and community partners to provide high-quality summer and after-school learning experiences at no cost to families. 

Bethlehem Center of Charlotte
Provides educational opportunities for low-income children and families to improve the quality of their lives.

Charlotte Bilingual Preschool
A 5-star licensed dual-language preschool that prepares our Spanish-speaking students to enter kindergarten ready to learn.

Charlotte Mecklenburg Library Foundation
Exists to help the Library improve lives and build a stronger community.

Charlotte Speech and Hearing Center
Provides speech screenings for preschoolers to identify children who have speech and language needs to help ensure a successful life.

Classroom Central
Provides free school supplies to area students in need. 

COSKids
Provides reliable and affordable 5-Star quality Christian-based care and instruction from infancy through the child's out-of-school time through 5th grade. 

First Book Charlotte
Helps children from low-income families read and own their own books. First Book Charlotte, supports the greater Charlotte community, by providing free books for children, through existing literacy programs.

Freedom School Partners
Promotes the long-term success of children by preventing summer learning loss through igniting a passion for reading and inspiring a love of learning. Freedom School Partners creates rich and vibrant classrooms of discovery in collaboration with diverse community partners.

Greater Enrichment Program
Provides students with academic, cultural and social instruction in a safe environment. 

La Escuelita Preschool
Offers tuition assistance to a specified number of students each year. This amount of assistance is based on a family’s ability to pay, using the national poverty guidelines.

Lakewood Preschool
A nonprofit preschool in Charlotte’s northwest corridor with a focus on literacy, math and science skills for children by introducing them to environments that are rich with tools that facilitate learning.

Learning Help Centers of Charlotte
Build relationships with disadvantaged children to develop future leaders and role models for their communities, using passionate adult mentors and encouragers. 

ourBRIDGE for KIDS
An out-of-school program for refugee and immigrant children that helps them achieve academic success and integration into the community through innovative instructional methods and a celebration of cultural diversity.

Positive Youth Transformation
Provides tutoring for at-risk school youth. 

Promising Pages
Provides innovative classroom programs and more than 100,000 free books annually and is Charlotte’s largest and most efficient distributor of upcycled books aimed at instilling a love of reading to increase reading proficiency among Charlotte’s third graders.

Reading Partners Charlotte
Empowers students to succeed in reading and in life by recruiting and training community volunteers to provide one-on-one literacy tutoring.

Renaissance West Community Initiative
In 2017, opened a Pre-K through 8th grade school, Renaissance West STEAM Academy, and jointly governs the school with Charlotte-Mecklenburg School system. RWCI also operates the Howard Levine Child Development Center, the beginning of a cradle to career education pipeline and is a 5-star high quality facility that strives to have all children ready to enter kindergarten, while also having a holistic approach with their families. 

Smart Start of Mecklenburg County
Has the sole mission of ensuring that every child in our county enters kindergarten healthy and ready to learn.

T.A. Coats
Strives to give every public-school teacher an assistant, allowing teachers to focus on education while we focus on administrative functions. 

The Learning Collaborative
A comprehensive preschool program with hands-on involvement between teachers, students, families, patrons and the community. 

United Way of Central Carolinas
Creates lasting change for those most in need, through strategic community philanthropy with a goal to recruit, place, and train 1,000 readers, tutors, and mentors in key agencies funded by United Way.

WTVI PBS
In addition to airing award-winning national PBS programs and local programs, WTVI PBS provides outreach programs to assist with school readiness, impacting more than 6,500 preschoolers each year.

YMCA of Greater Charlotte
Provides everything from water safety to disease prevention, youth literacy to college readiness and safe spaces to welcoming newcomers striving to making us – as individuals and a community – better.