Marketing students assist literacy effort 

Alan Canton, Marketing 100S instructor (lower right) and students from his service-learning class celebrate their successful ReadFresno Book drive.

Students in Alan Canton's Marketing 100S class in the Craig School of  Business completed their service learning project for the the spring 2005 semester with a successful book drive for ReadFresno. One of the primary objectives of ReadFresno is to get books into the hands of low performing young readers, thereby helping to promote literacy in the Fresno area.  

Student teams conducted book drives at schools, places of work, athletic events and other venues to obtain as many grade-appropriate, gently used books for the program as possible. They succeeded in getting more than 8,000 books, 6,000 of which will be donated to ReadFresno.  In addition to benefiting ReadFresno, approximately 2,000 books will be given to other programs that target older students. 

ReadFresno attempts to provide each targeted early elementary student with about 12 books.  This means that 500 more kids will have books to take home, read and keep thanks to the students from Marketing 100S. 

Kurt Madden, CEO of OneByOne Leadership and the force behind ReadFresno, expressed his appreciation to all of those who participated in this effort and stated, "The marketing department and the student volunteers have been a huge help to the ReadFresno effort. Because of them, hundreds of students who have never had a book of their own will now have many. This class is a great way to help students learn about marketing and, at the same time, address problems in the region. Our sincere thanks to the Craig School of Business and the marketing department for their contributions to our community."