Back to School Planning Starts Now, Donate a Book
ALBUQUERQUE – July 27, 2009 – Cricket Communications, Inc., a leading provider of wireless services, is hosting a back-to-school book drive to support Albuquerque Reads, a joint program of Albuquerque Public Schools (APS) and the Greater Albuquerque Chamber of Commerce (GACC), dedicated to providing additional support and guidance to kindergartners learning to read. The book drive will take place Saturday, August 1, 2009 through Sunday, August 23, 2009 at the Cricket stores located at 6209 Menaul Blvd NE and 200 Coors Blvd NW.
The back-to-school book drive will benefit local kindergartners at Altrisco, Bel-Air and Wherry elementary schools. While all the book donations (kindergarten level, ages 5-6) will be provided by the community, Cricket will also donate backpacks and other school supplies, such as pencils, pads, rulers and more for each student. The donations will provide over 200 young students with new school supplies and books.
Jackie Guerry, district director for Cricket stated, “We are strong believers in education and are thrilled to provide an outlet for the community to come together and make their donations. The backpacks full of books and supplies will give these children the start to a great school year and a strong future.”
The donations will be delivered to the schools by Cricket and Albuquerque Reads representatives during the first weeks of school. Receiving donated books, backpacks, and school supplies are an important step to providing these children with the right tools to kick off the school year. Throughout the year, Albuquerque Reads volunteer their time to visit each participating elementary school on a regular basis to provide the one-on-one tutoring each child deserves.
About Albuquerque Reads
The GACC has partnered with APS to create Albuquerque Reads. When entering school, kindergartners are at various reading, writing, and oral levels. The program provides the necessary tools like tutoring from community volunteers to assist these young students reach or surpass their reading grade level. Since the start of the program in 1999, at the end of each school year, over 50% of students are at or above reading level compared to their peers. The GACC and APS have future plans to enroll more schools in the Albuquerque Reads program.
About Cricket
Cricket is the pioneer of simple and affordable unlimited wireless services with no long-term commitments or credit checks required serving more than four million customers in 34 states. Cricket offers wireless voice and broadband Internet services over the latest technology, high-quality, all-digital 3G CDMA2000 1X and 1xEV-DO wireless network. Cricket’s wireless voice service plans include unlimited anytime minutes, unlimited U.S. long distance, unlimited text and picture messaging, unlimited text to Mexico, unlimited Mobile Web, unlimited directory assistance, as well as a variety of calling features and feature-rich mobile applications such as popular games, ringtones and wallpapers. Cricket Broadband provides unlimited Internet access anywhere within Cricket’s coverage areas at speeds comparable to DSL. For more information on Cricket, visit www.mycricket.com. Cricket is offered by Leap Wireless International, Inc., headquartered in San Diego, Calif. For more information on Leap, visit www.leapwireless.com.
Leap is a U.S. registered trademark and the Leap logo is a trademark of Leap. Cricket, Jump, the Cricket “K” and Flex Bucket are U.S. registered trademarks of Cricket. In addition, the following are trademarks or service marks of Cricket: Cricket By Week, Cricket Choice, Cricket Connect, Cricket Nation and Cricket PAYGo. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.
