Big Cheese Reads

"I must admit the day before when I saw the Big Cheese Reads on my calendar, I thought, "Do I really have time to do this?"  I left the school very thankful for the opportunity to get out of the rat race and spend some time with a great group of kids."
-- Mike Olivieri, Chief Revenue Officer, American City Business Journals

Celebrating 6 years as the nation's first CEO-driven academic mentoring campaign.

The Big Cheese Reads Initiative, a sponsorship program linked to our annual Gala, connects business and community leaders with middle-school students in order to emphasize the important link between literacy and career success. Since its inception in 2004, nearly 150 corporate and community leaders have visited classes to support the initiative. “Big Cheeses” have included Earvin “Magic” Johnson, Keith Lockhart, Ron Logue, Mayor Thomas Menino, Governor Deval Patrick, and Liz Walker.  View a complete list of last year's readers and sponsors.

“My reader should come back another time to read. I say this because we need more people like him to visit us. Now I don’t just want to be a pro football player; I want to be a poet and a president and also a football player.”
   -- Student
 

“Big Cheeses” visit a middle school classroom at least once during the school year to read a shortaloud to the class, give a brief personal account of the ways reading and learning have impacted their lives and career achievements, and respond to questions from the students. A Big Cheese Reader’s time commitment is 45 minutes to one hour in the school, plus the time that it takes to travel to and from the school.

“The mentoring and career advice provided through this program is so valuable. Students hung on to our reader’s every word as though he were a god. They took down the books that he recommended and checked them out of the school library. He gave advice about less TV and more sleep and they followed it!”
  -- Eighth grade teacher, Edwards Middle School
 

Sponsorship helps us continue to provide quality educational assistance and positive adult role models to our city’s school children by matching them with trained volunteer academic mentors.  For a list of sponsorship levels, please see the Corporate Sponsorship Levels.  To become a sponsor, please see the Sponsorship Pledge Form.

Every spring, we celebrate our readers at our Big Cheese Reads Gala.

“I never knew that reading could get you places. I wanted to be a basketball player but now I am going to finish school and see where my knowledge leads me. A career in basketball only lasts about 5 years, but knowledge lasts forever.” 
   -- Student

For more information on becoming or sponsoring a Big Cheese reader, please contact Karen L. Tefft, 617.451.6145