Giving Thanks on Giving Tuesday

Last month, we celebrated Giving Tuesday by giving thanks to all of the amazing supporters, volunteers, funders and partners who have helped us to read with more people than ever this year.

As the year draws to a close, we’d like to take this opportunity to thank you all again. Shared Reading brings great books, poems and plays to life through reading aloud and group discussion. And it’s with your support that thousands of people now get together across the UK each week, in prisons, care homes and the community, to enjoy and experience literature in this way.

Giving thanks to our volunteers: Laura’s Reader Story

Laura has been delivering a Shared Reading group for over three years. When she first started attending her local group in a recovery college, Laura was finding it difficult to interact and communicate with other people but she soon began to enjoy reading and connecting with others again.

As Laura’s confidence blossomed, she decided to take the plunge and train to become a Reader Leader. Running her own group has helped Laura to re-build her confidence and this, in turn, has meant that she is now sharing some of that confidence with others.

“I believe that Shared Reading is a massive means of support for everyone who walks through the door here at the recovery college. The lonely build friendships, the timid find a voice and we all do it together. Reading and listening can send you to a different place, when you feel at your very darkest and most useless and vulnerable it can bring you back to a brighter place where your heels rise and your eyes smile. We can make Shared Reading make us well together!”

Thank you to Laura and to all our volunteers for their dedication, passion and enthusiasm for the Reading Revolution!