San Angelo ISD Joins Community Partners to Celebrate Literacy, Prepare Families for Back-to-School
Hundreds of children and their family members joined San Angelo ISD and local businesses and organizations for the San Angelo READS! & United We Read Back-to-School Pop-Up event, August 2. The event's August date created an opportunity to take the San Angelo READS! Pop-Up event’s normal celebration of literacy and add an additional benefit – a back-to-school celebration with free back-to-school resources.
This year, San Angelo READS! partnered with the United Way of the Concho Valley and its United We Read literacy initiative to broaden the READS! event’s impact on the community. The pop-up, which took place at the Foster Communications Coliseum, drew in a large crowd and was the largest READS! event to date.
“We had a tremendous turnout!” said SAISD Director of Community Relations Sun Cha. “It’s hard to say exactly how many people attended the pop-up, but we DO know that we gave out 1,000 hot dogs, 300 Konas, and all of our community partners gave away everything they walked in with. A safe and conservative guess of the number of attendees would be somewhere between 800-1000 people. Just for comparison, our May 2023 and December 2023 pop-up events both had about 500 attendees.”
More than 60 community partners joined together to put on the free community event and provide 1,200 hot dogs, Kona Ice for children, several hundreds of books and valuable back-to-school resources such as backpacks, school supplies, services, coupons, helpful information and more. United We Read provided more than half of the event’s hot dogs and added more books and an additional 200 backpacks for attendees.
“Our community partners are truly amazing!” said Ms. Cha. “With the help and support of the community partners that participated in the event, we were able to put on a very successful and completely free event for the community. We simply could not have done it without them and their generosity. It was extremely uplifting to see such a tremendous show of support for our community.”
During the pop-up, families walked around the coliseum floor and visited with local businesses, organizations, and celebrity mascots such as the Chick-fil-A Cow, H-E-Buddy, and Angelo State University mascots Bella and Roscoe. Along with free back-to-school resources, San Angelo ISD staff were on site and available to assist families with enrollment for the 2024-2025 school year. Various San Angelo ISD departments, including athletics, federal and state programs, curriculum and instruction, and more also participated and set up games and activities for families to enjoy.
We would like to express our gratitude to each of the wonderful businesses and organizations for their support of our San Angelo community, students and San Angelo READS! and for joining us in the fun and important cause of championing literacy:
1st Community Federal Credit Union;
A & B Distributing;
Adult Literacy Council of the Concho Valley;
Angelo State University mascots, Bella & Roscoe;
Atmos Energy;
Candela Roofing;
Chick-fil-A Knickerbocker Road;
Children's Advocacy Center of Greater West Texas;
City of San Angelo - Recreation;
City National Bank;
Concho Educators Federal Credit Union;
Concho Valley Regional Food Bank;
Concho Valley Transit;
Congressman August Pfluger's Office, Texas, 11th District;
DJ E-Muscle;
Ener-Tel;
First Financial Bank;
FOX West Texas;
Goodfellow Air Force Base 17th Training Wing Child & Youth Education Services (formerly School Liaison);
GAFB STARBASE;
Girl Scouts of Central Texas;
Grand Canyon University;
H&R Block;
H-E-B;
Home Depot;
House of Faith;
Howard College San Angelo;
ICD Family Shelter;
Johnson's Funeral Home;
Junior League of San Angelo and their P.A.C.K. Project committee;
94.7 KIXY FM with Rick Andrews live on-site;
Free shaved ice for kids from Kona Ice of San Angelo;
La Esperanza Clinic;
Luminosity 360;
Phat Catz Gaming;
Raising Cane's;
San Angelo Chamber of Commerce Destination Marketing Organization (Convention & Visitors Bureau);
San Angelo Fire Department;
San Angelo Lions Club & San Angelo Lions Charities;
San Angelo Police Department;
San Angelo Recycling;
San Angelo Schools Foundation;
Scholastic Inc.;
Southwest Outdoor;
Sport Clips;
Tacoholics 325;
Texas Bank;
Texas Department of Family and Protective Services/Community Partners Rainbow Room;
Texas Trust Credit Union;
Tom Green County Library System;
Toys for Tots of San Angelo & the Concho Valley;
Tuff Shed;
Ultimate Air Trampoline Park;
United Way of the Concho Valley;
West Texas Guidance and Counseling;
West Texas Rehabilitation Center;
Whataburger;
WIC -- City of San Angelo
We also sincerely thank and commend our SAISD campuses, departments and incredible Difference Makers that made the celebration a fun and impactful way to inspire a love of reading with our students and community and helping us prepare our families for the new school year!
Please visit the San Angelo READS!website at www.saisd.org/read and follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram to stay up-to-date on San Angelo READS! We encourage you and your family to share how you celebrate reading through the hashtag, #SAISDReads.
San Angelo READS!
The San Angelo Reads! community-wide literacy initiative was founded by the District in 2020 to promote and encourage reading and the SAISD future-ready learner profile attributes among SAISD students and the greater San Angelo community. The goal of the literacy initiative is to increase awareness of the importance of literacy and to inspire a love for reading. This exciting initiative is driven by statistics which show how vitally important literacy is to providing all students with the opportunities to succeed at a young age. Children and teenagers who read for pleasure on a daily or weekly basis score better on reading and writing tests than infrequent or non-readers.
SAISD kicked off San Angelo READS! on December 9, 2020 with the inaugural San Angelo Reads! Day, a day when literacy was celebrated at every SAISD elementary campus with literacy fun like read-ins, unveiling book vending machines and a gift of a book to all SAISD 3rd graders compliments of the San Angelo Area Foundation. SAISD is focused on building literacy skills that create students who are prepared for future successes, inside and outside the classroom and beyond their time in our hallways.
