San Angelo READS! to Celebrate Four Years of Inspiring the Love of Literacy 

Next week, San Angelo ISD will join community partners from across the Concho Valley to celebrate literacy with the district’s 4th Annual San Angelo READS! Day and annual North Pole Pop-Up Event. 

Wednesday, December 6 will begin with a proclamation from the City of San Angelo Mayor Brenda Gunter who will officially proclaim the day as San Angelo READS! Day. San Angelo READS! is the district’s community-wide literacy initiative founded to promote and encourage reading. The goal is to increase awareness of the importance of literacy and inspire a love of reading. 

SAISD campuses will spend the day celebrating literacy with special activities for students, including: book-themed events; fun read alouds; and special visits from the Chick-fil-A cow, Whataguy, H-E-Buddy and Howard College mascot, Howie the Hawk.

Highlighting the day will be a gift of a new book, “Looking Like Me” by Walter Dean Myers, to every 3rd-grade student in San Angelo ISD, compliments of the special San Angelo READS! Day partner, H-E-B. A read aloud of the book will be streamed via Facebook Live from Bowie Elementary. 

The 4th annual San Angelo READS! Day celebration continues the following day, on Thursday, December 7 from 3:30-5:00 pm, with a San Angelo READS! North Pole Pop-Up event at the San Angelo Stadium. We invite the public to join us and celebrate literacy with this free, family-friendly, festive event. We'll have lots of holiday-themed games, crafts, activities, giveaways, limited quantity free shaved ice snow cones for children from Kona Ice of San Angelo, H-E-Buddy, a 360 photo booth courtesy of Luminosity 360, 94.7 KIXY-FM live on-site, the Grinch, Santa and more!

Date: Thursday, December 7, 2023
Time: 3:30pm – 5pm
Where: San Angelo Stadium parking lot (generally Gate 4 area)
Why: A celebration of inspiring a love of reading within our Concho Valley community!
Cost: FREE

This is a free, kid-friendly, holiday-themed event! We hope you can join us! Some of the fun activities of the day will include:

• Book giveaways
• Read alouds
• Christmas crafts
• Christmas-themed games
• Coloring books
• Corn hole
• Face painting
• Fun STEM games & activities 
• Luminosity 360 photo booth 
• Emergent Bilingual and Title 1 Parent and Family Involvement
• Free shaved ice for the kids from Kona Ice of San Angelo (limited number of tickets available, first come first serve)
• 94.7 KIXY-FM live on location
• Visits from H-E-Buddy, Whataguy, Santa and the Grinch
• And MORE!

For the past four years, San Angelo READS!, with the support of our wonderful community partners, has been able to get thousands of books directly into students' hands, build positivity around reading and increase the awareness of the importance of literacy. Let’s celebrate literacy. Keep reading San Angelo! 

To stay up-to-date on San Angelo ISD, please visit the SAISD website at www.saisd.org and follow us on Facebook and Twitter.

About San Angelo READS! 

The San Angelo READS! community-wide literacy initiative was founded by the district in 2020 to promote and encourage reading and the SAISD future-ready learner profile attributes among SAISD students and the greater San Angelo community. The goal of the literacy initiative is to increase awareness of the importance of literacy and to inspire a love for reading. This exciting initiative is driven by statistics which show how vitally important literacy is to providing all students with the opportunities to succeed at a young age. Children and teenagers who read for pleasure on a daily or weekly basis score better on reading and writing tests than infrequent or non-readers.

SAISD kicked off San Angelo READS! on December 9, 2020 with the inaugural San Angelo Reads! Day, a day when literacy was celebrated at every SAISD elementary campus with literacy fun like read-ins, unveiling book vending machines and a gift of a book to all SAISD third-graders compliments of the San Angelo Area Foundation. Inside and outside our classrooms, SAISD is committed to building literacy skills which create students who are prepared for future success, thus building a better tomorrow for our students and community.