Altec Supports Change – With #AltecGives
This month we celebrate the accomplishments of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. who would have just celebrated his 89th birthday. As the unquestionable leader in The Civil Rights Movement, his role in the advancement of civil rights using the tactics of nonviolence and civil disobedience forever changed the landscape of America as we know it today.
We reflect on his service and think, what can we do to make a difference? In that vein, this month is an appropriate time for Altec to announce our own philanthropic campaign for 2018. #AltecGives will provide a platform for the company and our employees to support national and local charities that we believe are making a change with families and children, education, and health and technological advancements.
So today, inside Altec, we are launching our Change for Change campaign. For the next 30 days Altec employees will collect spare change from friends, family, neighbors and our own piggy banks. The money we collect will be matched by the company (up to $500), with a final donation being made to support The Literacy Project, whose mission is to remove the impediment of illiteracy from the lives of our most vulnerable children with the help of teachers, volunteers, mentors and role models. The Literacy Project addresses illiteracy at its earliest stage by teaching at-risk second-graders how to read.
The statistics on literacy (from The Literacy Project and DoSomething.org) underscore the critical need to address illiteracy in the United States:
- Currently, 45 million Americans are functionally illiterate and cannot read above a fifth-grade level.
- Reports show that the rate of low literacy in the United States directly costs the healthcare industry over $70 million every year.
- Students who don’t read proficiently by the 3rd grade are 4 times likelier to drop out of school.
- Nearly 85% of the juveniles who face trial in the juvenile court system are functionally illiterate, proving that there is a close relationship between illiteracy and crime. More than 60% of all inmates are functionally illiterate.
The saddest statistic is, that as of 2011, America was the only free-market OECD (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development) country where the current generation was less educated than the previous one. Altec believes that to be a stronger country our citizenry must have the tools to be successful, and reading IS fundamental to this.
As American entrepreneur and philanthropist Eli Broad, once stated, “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.”
Altec looks forward to sharing with you throughout the year how we are working together to change the world, even a tiny bit, through our #AltecGives program.