Hazleton Chamber Hosts Community Reading Day

Community Reading Day helps to promote literacy and encourage life-long reading and imagination with our next generation. That's the message the Greater Hazleton Chamber of Commerce is sending through its partnership with Penn State Hazleton in the Seventeenth Annual Community Reading Day program. This event will be held in the Hazleton area on April 25th between 9:30 am and 10:00 am in elementary classrooms in Hazleton Area schools and throughout Luzerne, Lackawanna, and Wayne Counties.

In addition to the Greater Hazleton Chamber, additional event partners are the Greater Wilkes-Barre Chamber, the Greater Carbondale Area Chamber, the Greater Pittston Chamber, the South Valley Chamber, and the Wayne County Chamber. Together, these regional groups organized this annual event as part of their ongoing efforts to encourage business/education partnerships.

The Community Reading Day program is designed to promote literacy and to strengthen the partnership between business and education. Business volunteers will visit first and second grade classrooms in public, private and parochial schools to read a book to the students, discuss the book and their career, and donate the book to the class. This event also gives the students and teachers the opportunity to interact with a representative of the business community.

Last year, over 70 volunteers from Chamber-member businesses participated in the program. Efforts are currently underway to match volunteers with classrooms. To find out more about the program, contact Linda Mantush at the Greater Hazleton Chamber of Commerce at

(570) 455-1509 or email; lmantush@hazletonchamber.org.

Table left to right: Levi Kurpz, Isabella Podlesny, Caleb Kmieciak - Valley Elementary students

Standing: Linda Mantush, Greater Hazleton Chamber of Commerce; Dr. Gary Lawler, Penn State Hazleton; George Donadi, Valley Elementary Principal