Save the Children Reading Campaign Hits the Road this Summer, Helping Kids Get Ready for School with Critical Resources, Fun Learning Activities
Bus Tour Fueled by Support from SC Johnson, T.J.Maxx to Provide School Supplies, Meals to Kids in Need across America
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| Community Relations Tour Manager Chrissy Morgan prepares to take Save the Children’s 100 Days of Reading campaign on the road this summer for a 10-city bus tour across America. The tour, starting July 10 and supported by SC Johnson and T.J.Maxx, will bring summer learning, fun activities and essential resources to help kids in need prepare for the upcoming school year. Photo: Save the Children. |
FAIRFIELD, Conn. (July 7, 2021) – Save the Children is taking its 100 Days of Reading campaign on the road this summer with a 10-city bus tour supported by SC Johnson and T.J.Maxx. The tour, which kicks off this week, will bring summer learning, fun activities and essential resources to help kids in need across America prepare for the upcoming school year.
Save the Children – in partnership with SC Johnson, makers of iconic brands such as Windex® and OFF!®, and T.J.Maxx – has stuffed the bus with backpacks of school supplies, educational materials and personal care products, which they will be hand delivering to families in cities from coast to coast starting July 10, along with food at a number of tour stops. The mobile 100 Days of Reading tour – on the road through August 29, powered by an eco-friendly, clean fuel bus – will also host educational games and activities on-site to promote family engagement, learning and fun."
“Summer is a crucial time for kids to build on what they’ve learned during the school year, and they need fun ways to stay engaged in reading and learning all summer long. That’s why Save the Children created 100 Days of Reading and its accompanying cross-country bus tour,” said Betsy Zorio, Vice President of U.S. Programs for Save the Children. “We are tremendously grateful to SC Johnson and T.J.Maxx for helping make this tour a reality, and ensuring we can feed the minds and bellies of America’s most vulnerable children during this critical time.”
Among numerous activities on site, participating children can get clued in to learning with an interactive, kindergarten readiness activity featuring a larger-than-life, magnetic storybook from Nickelodeon’s Blue’s Clues & You!, and have fun with math as they race to the finish with characters from Nickelodeon’s Blaze and the Monster Machines. Kids can also play The Greatest Catch game, presented by SC Johnson, which teaches about the importance of recycling plastic. The Longest Story Ever Told activity, presented by T.J.Maxx, empowers each child to help author a book, adding another sentence or two to a building story that will be shared with the participants and the community.
“SC Johnson is a proud sponsor of the 100 Days of Reading campaign. We know that, on average, one out of every six children who isn't reading proficiently by third grade will not graduate high school,” Alan VanderMolen, Senior Vice President and Chief Communications Officer at SC Johnson. “As reading is essential to future success, it’s important that students are equipped with the skills needed for success and this program enables future generations.”
The 100 Days of Reading Bus Tour will be rolling into the following cities this summer: San Francisco; Los Angeles; New Orleans; Atlanta; Nashville; Charlotte and Stanley, N.C.; Bay City, Mich.; Racine, Wis.; and Boston.
"T.J.Maxx has been a proud partner of Save the Children for 37 years, and we believe in its mission of providing children access to quality education,” said Gina Bollus, Manager of Marketing for T.J.Maxx. “We’re looking forward to helping Save the Children provide children with much-needed school supplies and food so they can keep their minds and bodies nourished during the critical summer months, to set them up for success at school come fall."
Described by the popular online parent-focused website Red Tricycle as “one more way to help your kids have the ultimate summer of fun and learning, while giving back at the same time,” 100 Days of Reading, provides tips and activities on its Instagram (@savethechildren) and at SavetheChildren.org/READ to help ensure children continue engaging in reading and stay active all summer long. Now through September 8, every link that is clicked or tapped by participants will help unlock donations of books, educational materials and healthy food for 750,000 kids living in some of America’s most impoverished, rural communities – where Save the Children is working every day to ensure children are getting the early learning and educational support they need to be successful in school and life.
To learn more, visit SavetheChildren.org/READ.
About SC Johnson
SC Johnson is a family company dedicated to innovative, high-quality products, excellence in the workplace and a long-term commitment to the environment and the communities in which it operates. Based in the USA, the company is one of the world's leading manufacturers of household cleaning products and products for home storage, air care, pest control and shoe care, as well as professional products. It markets such well-known brands as GLADE®, KIWI®, OFF!®, PLEDGE®, RAID®, SCRUBBING BUBBLES®, SHOUT®, WINDEX® and ZIPLOC® in the U.S. and beyond, with brands marketed outside the U.S. including AUTAN®, BAYGON®, BRISE®, KABIKILLER®, KLEAR®, MR MUSCLE® and RIDSECT®. The 135-year-old company, which generates $10 billion in sales, employs approximately 13,000 people globally and sells products in virtually every country around the world. www.scjohnson.com
About Nickelodeon
Nickelodeon, now in its 42nd year, is the number-one entertainment brand for kids. It has built a diverse, global business by putting kids first in everything it does. The brand includes television programming and production in the United States and around the world, plus consumer products, digital, location-based experiences, publishing and feature films. For more information or artwork, visit http://www.nickpress.com. Nickelodeon and all related titles, characters and logos are trademarks of ViacomCBS Inc. (Nasdaq: VIACA, VIAC).
About Save the Children
Save the Children believes every child deserves a future. Since our founding more than 100 years ago, we’ve changed the lives of more than 1 billion children. In the United States and around the world, we give children a healthy start in life, the opportunity to learn and protection from harm. We do whatever it takes for children – every day and in times of crisis – transforming their lives and the future we share. Follow us on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and YouTube.
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Save the Children’s 100 Days of Reading Bus Tour Hits the Road This Summer
Last month, Penguin Random House partnered with Save the Children for their annual 100 Days of Reading campaign. PRH will donate 50,000 children’s books in addition to providing content for their online library. Throughout the summer, Save the Children will share tips and activities to help keep kids active and learning. Every click on the library of activities on their website, or engagement through daily activities posted to their Instagram page, results in donations of books, educational material, and healthy meals to the children who need them most.
Save the Children recently announced the official launch of the 100 Days of Reading Bus Tour, which started on July 10 in San Francisco and will bring summer learning, fun activities, and essential resources to help kids in need prepare for the upcoming school year. This is an exciting component of the national campaign that in 2020 brought learning resources and fun to families impacted by the pandemic as part of their partnership with T.J. Maxx and Kinder. Last year, the tour was hosted in Chicago and Boston and ultimately set the stage for the expansion and vision they are rolling out this year. You can view the press release here and virtually meet dynamic Tour Manager and official bus driver, Chrissy Morgan.
This year, SC Johnson and Nickelodeon are also supporting the 10-city tour. Stops include Los Angeles; New Orleans; Atlanta; Nashville; Charlotte and Stanley, NC; Bay City, MI; Racine, WI; Chicago; and Boston. The bus is filled with new backpacks loaded with supplies and learning materials as well as four dynamic activities to promote literacy and STEAM education. Gifts and support of school supplies were donated by Mattel, along with a free subscription to online children’s books from Vooks.
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From Event Marketer:
CAUSE MARKETING: SAVE THE CHILDREN’S MOBILE TOUR PROVIDES KIDS WITH HANDS-ON EDUCATION, RESOURCES
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| Beyond the Backpack: Save the Children’s goal is to deliver backpacks filled with school supplies, educational materials and wellness items to 2,000 kids in each market. |
They say if you don’t use it you lose it, so to keep underserved kids engaged in learning and prepare them for the upcoming school year while they’re on summer vacation, Save the Children has taken its youth reading campaign on the road. With help from brand partners T.J.Maxx, SC Johnson and Nickelodeon, the organization is delivering school supplies-filled backpacks and educational games to children and families from coast to coast through Aug. 29 on a 10-city mobile tour.
Arriving on the heels of a two-city educational tour activated in 2020, this year’s program serves as the face-to-face manifestation of Save the Children’s 100 Days of Reading campaign, which provides tips and activities on the organization’s Instagram account and a microsite to ensure kids are actively engaging in reading and education all summer long. For every link that is clicked or tapped through Sept. 8 (International Literacy Day), donations of books, educational materials and healthy food are unlocked for 750,000 kids living in some of the country’s most impoverished, rural communities. To bring the concept into the real world, Save the Children and its partners are working with local organizations to identify the most underserved elementary school-aged kids in each city, and provide them with hands-on learning activities and essential resources.
“After the year we’ve all faced with learning disruptions, it’s more important than ever that every kid remains engaged,” says Jennifer Kendra, head of cause marketing and partnership development at Save the Children US. “But those that are from the lowest-resource communities have the biggest gap. So we hit the road this summer with our partners to demonstrate the impact because we’re bringing backpacks and putting them into the hands of kids who need them most. And that’s a huge help for families who have had to make some really hard decisions this year and takes a little bit of that pressure off of back-to-school.”
The objective is to hand-deliver backpacks filled with school supplies, educational materials and personal care products to 2,000 children in each market. But beyond the bags, the tour provides a platform for family engagement, learning and some good clean fun. At each stop, a full event pops out of Save the Children’s tour vehicle—a wrapped school bus powered by clean propane that vastly reduces the tour’s carbon footprint—including, tents, games and in some markets, food and beverages.
Young attendees are encouraged to participate in a range of educational activities that center on literacy, math and STEM. An interactive kindergarten readiness activity, for instance, features a larger-than-life magnetic storybook developed around Nickelodeon’s “Blue’s Clues & You!” program. Similar to Mad Libs, the activity encourages kids to fill in blanks within the story with their own pictures and words. There’s also a math race game themed around Nickelodeon’s “Blaze and the Monster Machines” series, and a Greatest Catch activity from SC Johnson that teaches kids the importance of recycling. Participants use magnetic poles to fish a water bottle out of the “ocean,” then either recycle the bottle or take it to a crafts station to repurpose it.
Rounding out the activities is T.J.Maxx’s Longest Story Ever Told, which empowers kids to help author a book by adding a sentence or drawing to a crowdsourced story. When the campaign wraps, Save the Children will package the stories into mini digital books in each market and share them with the community.
“Bringing together like-minded partners who want to make a difference for children is really key to helping make events like this even more impactful and meaningful for kids because it helps put a little more fuel into the bus tour, so to speak,” says Kendra. “SC Johnson, for example, really believes in contributing to the wellbeing of communities, and particularly communities where they operate, by supporting initiatives that enhance that quality of life. And they, like many of our other partners, believe that education is an essential part of helping families move out of poverty and have access to greater economic mobility… So it’s bringing together all these like-minded folks into an opportunity for us to really engage hands-on.”
Looking ahead, Save the Children and its brand partners say they’re just getting started. The organization has plans to continue to, as Kendra puts it, “bring those resources, bring the joy, bring the fun” to underserved communities in the future through a larger-scale mobile tour featuring multiple vehicles. Buckle up. Agencies: Inspira Marketing Group, Norwalk, CT (production, creative); Trinity Displays, Chesterton, IN (mobile build).
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From Event Marketer:
These Cause Marketing Activations Were Built to Align with Consumers’ Evolving Priorities
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Save the Children
Save the Children ‘s tour delivered supplies and hands-on educational programming.
To keep underserved kids engaged in learning and prepare them for the school year while on summer vacation, Save the Children took its digital 100 Days of Reading youth literacy program on the road. With help from brand partners T.J.Maxx, SC Johnson and Nickelodeon, the organization delivered school supplies-filled backpacks and educational games to children and families on a national mobile tour.
To bring the digital concept into the real world, Save the Children and its partners worked with local organizations to identify the most underserved elementary school-aged kids in each city on the tour, and provided them with hands-on learning activities and essential resources.
At each stop, a full event popped out of Save the Children’s tour vehicle. Young attendees were encouraged to participate in a range of educational activities that centered on literacy, math and STEM. An interactive kindergarten readiness activation, for instance, featured a larger-than-life magnetic storybook developed around Nickelodeon’s “Blue’s Clues & You!” program and served as a Mad Libs-like activity that encouraged kids to fill in blanks with their own pictures and words.
“Bringing together like-minded partners who want to make a difference for children is really key to helping make events like this even more impactful and meaningful for kids,” says Jennifer Kendra, head of cause marketing and partnership development at Save the Children US. “SC Johnson, for example, really believes in contributing to the wellbeing of communities by supporting initiatives that enhance that quality of life. And they believe that education is an essential part of helping families move out of poverty and have access to greater economic mobility… So it’s bringing together all these like-minded folks into an opportunity for us to really engage hands-on.” (Agencies: Inspira Marketing Group, production/creative; Trinity Displays, mobile build)
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Originally published: July 17, 2021.
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