LeVar Burton Launches Reading Rainbow Kickstarter; World Rejoices.
Butterfly in the sky,
I can go twice as high,
Take a look
it’s in a book,
a reading rainbow…
You remember the song.
When Reading Rainbow ended it’s 23 (I know, right?) year run, 1983-2006, the world lost something wonderful. LeVar Burton showed generations of children that reading is awesome and fun, and can take you to places you could only dream of. It still exists as a tablet app, but according to LeVar, “only 33% of students have access to tablet computing.”
That will just not do.
Enter Kickstarter. A campaign was launched yesterday, with the goal of raising enough money to not only provide kids with unlimited reading rainbow content through any internet connection, but to provide the content to schools in need for free. There’s a nice infographic on the KS page to explain it as well. It’s a fantastic and much-needed project.
The video on the KS page basically sums up what our generation thinks of the show (it’s amazing).
Donations range anywhere from $5 to $10,000. As you know, the more you donate, the cooler the rewards. Want to wear Geordi LaForge’s visor? Or maybe have Levar record your voicemail message? How about dinner? A bumper sticker? It’s all there. There’s tons of options if you’ve got the cash. Two extremely generous backers have already bought the $10K school assembly package, making me envious I graduated so long ago.
Reading is awesome. Kids growing up need to feel that learning is fun, and not just about standardized tests.
Within a few short hours the campaign met it’s goal of $1 million dollars, and is well on it’s way to smashing every Kickstarter record!
Don’t forget to watch the video all the way to the end. You’ll see why. 😉
Oh. Also if you haven’t seen it, here’s Jimmy Fallon as Jim Morrison singing the Reading Rainbow theme song.
Set phasers to love me.
