`Power Lunch' Corporate Volunteer Reading Program in Downtown Los Angeles to Grow Citywide.

Business/Lifestyle Editors & Legal/Education Writers

LOS ANGELES--(BUSINESS WIRE)--May 6, 2002

National Program Enables Corporate Employees to Read With

Elementary School Students During Their Lunch Hour

Every Tuesday, 25 employees of the downtown law firm Kirkland & Ellis head to a Power Lunch. Sounds typical, but these lawyers, case assistants, librarians and receptionists take a short bus ride across the freeway to Tenth Street Elementary School to read with 25 second-, third- and fourth-graders.

The firm and the school are participating in Power Lunch, the flagship program of a national nonprofit called EVERYBODY WINS! Power Lunch matches corporate volunteers with elementary school students for a once-a-week, one-to-one read-aloud.

Founded in New York in 1991, EVERYBODY WINS! wants to reach children while they are young, stimulate in them a love of reading and help them believe that they can be successful in school and in life. EVERYBODY WINS!' success was recently recognized by the U.S. Congress in the form of a $1 million grant for expansion.

Power Lunch came to Los Angeles last year through pilot programs with Kirkland & Ellis and Goldman Sachs in Century City. Kirkland & Ellis partner John Zackrison was instrumental in establishing the L.A. program. The father of six wanted involvement with kids who could use one-to-one attention, and a program that the firm's employees could do together.

EVERYBODY WINS! matched Kirkland & Ellis with Tenth Street Elementary and today, more than 40 volunteers and students read together at the year `round school. "We are expanding to other workplaces throughout the greater L.A. area, establishing partnerships to begin operation next fall," says EVERYBODY WINS! Los Angeles coordinator Mary Daily.

EVERYBODY WINS! was the brainchild of New York executive Arthur Tannenbaum in the late 1980s. Reading Jim Trelease's "The Read Aloud Handbook," which underscores the importance of reading aloud to children to promote literacy and a love of literature, prompted him to visit a nearby school on his lunch hour to read with a student.

Today, Power Lunch operates throughout New York City and in 37 cities nationally. The program is not about teaching reading, Tannenbaum says, but about the "simple pleasure of reading. We hope that the volunteers' love of reading will be contagious to the children. And we believe that reading benefits us all."

In the program, students develop enthusiasm about reading, which helps to develop their listening, vocabulary and creative thinking skills, and build their self-esteem and confidence. Volunteers see the impact of their involvement, and employers offer a rewarding, time-efficient volunteer experience while providing a valuable community service. Hence the name "EVERYBODY WINS!"

For information on the national EVERYBODY WINS! program, log on to www.everybodywins.org. To learn how your organization can participate in EVERYBODY WINS! in Los Angeles, call Mary Daily at 310/393-9066.