JetBlue Comes Up With ‘Unique & Innovative’ Solution To Battle ‘Book Desert’


10/27/2016

Bringing the light of education to children deprived from reading.


Dailycsr.com – 27 October 2016 – With the help of the reading exercise, children can develop their imagination capacity, besides strengthening themselves to achieve “academic success”. JetBlue Airways keeps youth and education at the core of their “community” programmes. The company goes out of their way to organize “age-appropriate books” for children who are deprived from the tools of reading.
 
The partners of JetBlue Airways in the above mentioned endeavour include “First Book and Random House Children’s Books”, whereby JetBlue’s financial contribution in this field amounts to over “$2 million worth of books” within the period of last five-years.
 
Dr. Susan Neuman is an expert in the U.S. for “childhood literacy”, whereby JetBlue “commissioned” research project in the year of 2014 under Dr. Neuman. The said research revealed the increasing challenges to battle “book deserts”. The Corporate Social Responsibility team at JetBlue worked closely with “an advisory board of childhood literacy and development experts”.
 
As a result, they found a solution “unique and innovative” in nature, which was to deliver books through “public vending machines”. Talking about their project, the JetBlue Airways adds:
“We successfully piloted the project during summer 2015 in the Anacostia community of Washington, DC, where research found only one in 830 children had access to an age-appropriate book. Thousands of children flocked to the vending machines located in a community center, a supermarket and a local church to select nearly 30,000 books to take home. In all, we gave away 100,000 books throughout Washington, DC, in 2015, targeting toddlers through young teens”.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
References:
ethicalperformance.com