28 November 2018

Supporters of Beanstalk have been putting on their favourite festive beanie hats to help raise vital funds that will ensure more children receive one-to-one reading support in primary schools across England.  

This was the third annual #BeanstalkBeanieDay which each year rallies supporters to pull on a beanie hat, share a selfie on social media and text ‘BEAN27 £2’ to 70070. The campaign coincides with #GivingTuesday, the world’s biggest day of giving, raising awareness for charities everywhere which Beanstalk partners with. 

Comedian and Beanstalk ambassador Jack Whitehall kicked off #BeanstalkBeanieDay in style by posting a special video message in his beanie hat and announcing news of a prize for the best photo. Children’s authors and illustrators from across the book world got behind the campaign too, including Pippa Goodhart, Michael Rosen, Polly Faber, Phillip Ardagh, Lisa Thompson, Nick Sharratt, Piers Torday and Peter Bunzl.  

Beanstalk’s Chief Executive Officer Ginny Lunn said:

“#BeanstalkBeanieDay is a fun event which everyone can get involved in through sharing, donating and raising awareness for Beanstalk and children’s literacy. This year 25% of primary school leavers did not reach the expected standard of reading and clearly more needs to be done to close the gap to ensure all children have the chance to achieve positive educational outcomes.  

“At Beanstalk we help do this by working one-to-one with children who need extra help in primary schools and early years settings, encouraging a love of books and promoting reading for pleasure. As a charity we rely on fundraising initiatives to ensure we have the money to continue providing excellent training and support to our incredible network of volunteers, to offer fantastic books and resources to them and to enable more schools to access our programmes. Thank you to everyone who has taken part in #BeanstalkBeanieDay this year and your help in shaping better futures for children across England.”  

Beanstalk recruits, trains and places volunteers in primary schools and early years settings nationwide to work one-to-one with pupils who need extra help with reading. It also delivers a Reading Leaders programme which trains secondary school pupils to support younger peers with reading. In the last school year the charity helped 13,500 children across England through the help of 4,200 reading helpers, ensuring children have the skills and confidence to reach their true potential.  

There is still time to join in #BeanstalkBeanieDay and anyone can pledge their support to Beanstalk at any time by texting ‘BEAN27 £2’ to 70070. There are also many other ways people can help support Beanstalk’s work.

Find out more about supporting Beanstalk.