In collaboration with We Need Diverse Books, Penguin Random House presented our Creative Writing Award winners with a week of professional development programming, offering practical knowledge and insight into the book world. Our six $10,000 scholarship recipients gained direct access to publishing professionals through a series of virtual events designed and hosted by the Penguin Random House Corporate Communications Team.
Since 1993, this program has awarded more than $2.9 million to public high school students for original poetry, memoir/personal essay, fiction/drama, and spoken word compositions. To learn more about the Creative Writing Awards, click here.
Penguin Random House joined forces with Lambda Literary and the NYC Department of Education to facilitate the LGBTQ Writers in Schools program, an initiative bringing LGBTQ+ writers and their works to K-12 classrooms across New York City. The program primarily serves Title 1 schools, which support children from low-income backgrounds, making access to LGBTQ+ literature crucial for LGBTQ+ students and their allies.
In the U.S., we continued our partnership with The Association for Rural and Small Libraries (ARSL) to offer a rolling grant program recognizing rural, small, and tribal libraries that support underserved communities in the U.S. and U.S. territories. Many rural libraries were impacted by the pandemic, especially those in under-served communities. Libraries are lifelines in countless ways, from serving as trusted sources for reliable information and providing access to important services and resources, including internet hotspots for families without internet service. In 2023, the program recognized over 40 libraries across the U.S. that support underserved communities.
Penguin Random House and First Book joined forces to celebrate teachers throughout the month of May. As part of this initiative, we gave away 10 gift credits worth $500 each to educators for use in the First Book Marketplace, ensuring that students had plenty of reading material to enjoy during the summer break.
Penguin Random House marked the 10th anniversary of our meaningful partnership with Save the Children via a special Giving Tuesday campaign in 2024. Over the past decade, we have worked together to improve the lives of countless children around the world, providing them with the resources and support they need to thrive.
Through December 10, we offered a special matching program for Penguin Random House U.S. employees, matching donations made to Save the Children’s Make Childhood Fair Fund, up to $10,000. This fund supports early education and literacy programs in rural communities throughout the U.S. During the same period, each book purchased through penguinrandomhouse.com resulted in a $1 donation to Save the Children, up to a total of $10,000.
Penguin Random House volunteers ran this year’s Bat Madison Square Park, choosing a children’s book from the bike and reading every half hour from 12pm – 2pm. During non-storytime periods, volunteers helped the Botanical Book Bike Associate (a Madison Square Park Conservancy staff member) answer general questions about the books, lending/borrowing procedure, and other inquiries. For more information about the Botanical Book Bike, click here.
In spring 2024, Read Ahead hosted its first-ever Read-a-Thon! Penguin Random House has been a proud partner of Read Ahead since 1997, supporting their vision of unlocking students’ full potential through mentoring relationships based on a love of reading. To learn more about Read Ahead and this team-based fundraiser, click here.
On Thursday, May 30, 20 NYC-based Penguin Random House employees volunteered with the Madison Square Park Conservancy. Volunteers engaged in some light physical activity and got in the weeds—both literally and figuratively—to plant hundreds of blooming plants in the park for visitors to enjoy. To learn more about Madison Square Park Conservancy, click here.
Surpassing our 2023 total, Penguin Random House raised $2,777 for Share Lunch Fight Hunger in 2024, enough to help feed over 6,450 kids in NYC for one day. In a time of great need, with 1 in 4 children facing food insecurity, City Harvest raised enough through this year’s campaign to feed more than 11,000 NYC kids and their families for the entire summer. Learn more about Share Lunch Fight Hunger here.
In May, Penguin Random House donated over 150 LGBTQ+ books across eleven divisions for a student-led Pride event at the New College of Florida. The school has been in the news recently as a site where partisan politics and educational freedom are clashing in a way that’s not unrelated to the wave of book banning we’ve been seeing throughout the nation. As a result of the recent appointments by Gov. DeSantis to the New College Board of Trustees in support of his views, students have been restricted in the kinds of activities they can do with school funds—including DEI and LGBTQ events like Pride.
