Lehigh Valley Reads, a partnership between the United Way of the Greater Lehigh Valley and PBS39, began four years ago to support the goal of having at least 75 percent of Lehigh Valley students read proficiently by the end of third grade.

Although that goal - projected as attainable by 2021 - was halted by Pennsylvania Department of Education COVID-19 mitigation policies, the parties behind the effort remain committed to improving primary-grade literacy.

If anything, LV Reads Campaign Director Angela Zanelli says the literacy setbacks of 2020 and 2021 have only heightened the importance of the campaign, including the Million Minute Challenge initiated three years ago to celebrate the first year of the literacy campaign.

The Million Minute Challenge dares Valley residents of all ages to commit to reading during the month of March and to pledge their minutes online at lehighvalleyreads.org/million.

As of Feb. 16, Valley residents had already committed to read a total of 1,087,395 minutes in March.

Although reading challenges are not new, the monthlong challenge is the unique creation of LV Reads, an idea that groups across the country have begun adopting.

Zanelli, Jill Pereira of UWGLV and their team helped the United Way of Hartford, Conn., launch its own Million Minutes Challenge last summer. LV Reads is currently working with a group in North Carolina to start one there, providing digital assets such as mascot logos and goal sheets.

“This event exists to create community around reading,” Zanelli explained.

LV Reads designed the challenge to be “accessible to most and as flexible as possible,” with adults encouraged to log minutes for reading to very young children and all participants given free access to a digital library for the month of March. WorldReader works on any device that can connect to the Internet, and e-books can be downloaded while online for later reading offline.

In addition to the United Way and PBS39, dozens of local companies and nonprofit organizations have signed up to help. A full list of partners is available online at lehighvalleyreads.org/about/our-partners.

Two of these partners, CAI and People First, are the presenting sponsors for 2022. CAI is Computer Aid Inc., a technology services firm headquartered in Allentown. People First is a credit union with seven branches in the Lehigh Valley. Their sponsorship includes financial support, donations of new and gently used books and encouraging their own employees to pledge minutes to the challenge.

Registration opened Feb. 1, but a full-scale kickoff is scheduled for March 2, which is celebrated nationally as Read Across America Day. Members of the LV Reads team will visit local schools, and the day will end with an appearance at the Lehigh Valley Phantoms game.

Zanelli highlights the generosity of Truist, a bank that has contributed to LV Reads financially and will be donating its ad time on the Jumbotron to LV Reads during the March 2 game. Fans will be encouraged to wear purple to show their support for early literacy.

It’s all part of what Zanelli identifies as “the heart of collective impact work,” such as building trust and relationships, identifying gaps and meeting challenges.

“We’re in the game of systems change,” Zanelli says. “Systems have to shift to make our students successful, and Lehigh Valley Reads is here to support the community in moving toward that change.”

Undaunted by the challenges of the past two years, LV Reads is dedicated to reaching its goal of all third-graders reading at grade level by 2025, with the support of partners throughout the community and using relationships Zanelli and her team continue to build and strengthen.