Tilton’s Reading Challenge

LaSalle Bank partners with Tilton Elementary School. We’ve helped them set up a computer lab, done career days, mentor students, a lot of things to try to help the students. One thing LaSalle does is the annual Reading Challenge.

We ask the students to read, and report on, a number of books each year. The first year the student body read 80 books, and this year over 6000 – amazing!

Above is a picture of the volunteers – I’m inthe back near the middle.

Workplace mentoring

I’ve been helping students from Tilton Elementary School to read better for three years, participating in the WITS program via LaSalle Bank’s Workplace Mentoring program.  Here’s Davion:

Davion is a student at Tilton Elementary here in Chicago. The school is located on the west side in an economically
depressed part of town.

Davion is a good reader, and I’m glad I get to help him read better. I’m also glad that LaSalle Bank supports the Chicago Public School system, which includes programs like this. When I grew up, I was quite lucky – my school district, outside Washington, D.C., was one of the best in the country at the time. All school districts should be that good.

Tilton Elementary’s Read Aloud 2005

The assembly was fantastic! The kids are always high-energy and ready to shout and clap. We were ushered into the school and taken upstairs to have bagels and juice and coffee; we also wore name tags:

Then, down to the auditorium where the kids were already rocking! Here’s the program:

Norm Bobins, president and CEO for LaSalle Bank, was the main speaker.

The kids read over 3000 books last year – that’s incredible! Awards were given to the top student readers and to the classes that read the most books.

I’ll update this page with some pictures from the event when I get them.