Good News Fridays: Pledge To Mandy Shunnarah’s Readathon Pledge Page

By Nathan Young on January 16, 2015

Geek Alabama not only talks about the culture, events, and geeky/nerdy stuff in Alabama, Georgia, the southeast, and the country. We also talk about and help out the fellow bloggers who calls Alabama home. For example, we talked about how blogger Rachel Callahan is selling photos on Picture Birmingham to raise money for The Wellhouse.

I also talked about how blogger Jamie’s Rabbits has started their business called Jamie’s Sweet Revenge, which makes awesome cake pops!

Now, another blogger is starting something worth talking about. And this campaign is about people who can not read in Alabama, which is a big problem! There are over 92,000 functionally illiterate adults in Central Alabama, yes 92,000 people who can’t even read this post, or any post for that matter. The Literacy Council of Central Alabama estimates that there are nearly 100,000 people who can’t read nutrition labels, or read what’s on the medicine label, or read a bedtime story to their kids. Nearly 100,000 illiterate adults is a serious problem in Alabama!

And blogger Mandy Shunnarah from the blog Fixed Baroque is trying to do something about it! Mandy believes in the power of books, and that is why she is trying to raise $1,000 for the National Book Foundation by January 24th, or National Readathon Day. The National Book Foundation is a non-profit that is expanding the audience for literature in America through programs like BookUp, The Innovations in Reading Prize, and the National Book Awards. And Mandy has pledged to read for four hours with book lovers across America on National Readathon Day on Sunday, January 24th!

And for an extra bonus, for every $5 you donate, she will give you a chance to take home a book from her personal library. (This is only available to Birmingham, AL readers unless you don’t mind paying an extra $4 for shipping.) Other than the illiteracy problem in Alabama, there is another problem with books, the number of people reading them! According to the National Book Foundation, 53% of 9-year-olds read for pleasure daily, and by the time they turn 17, that number drops to 19%!, yes 19% percent! So National Readathon Day is very important for Mandy Shunnarah, and all book nerds everywhere!

As of January 16th, only $15 of the $1,000 has been raised, and that number could be much, much higher! So, if you want to donate to Mandy’s FirstGiving pledge page, go to: http://www.firstgiving.com/fundraiser/mandy-shunnarah/national-readathon-day