At the start of the Easter holiday, employees of Penguin Random House Verlagsgruppe visited the Münchner Tafel (Munich Food Bank) for the fourth time. A total of over 800 books were handed out to kids and their parents this year. Picture books were popular with the very youngest; beginning readers were particularly keen to pick up Sven Gerhardt’s MINNA MELONE. As volunteers at Münchner Tafel explained: “We are currently receiving a lot of families who have fled from Ukraine. Children’s books are also great for adults to learn German.”
This annual project has become an integral part of Penguin Random House Verlagsgruppe’s long-standing charitable work to promote reading.
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.
During a reading marking the end of “Freedom of Expression Week” at Mediacampus Frankfurt, the school for aspiring booksellers, Penguin author Hasnain Kazim entertained around 130 guests with his clever approach to the issues of hate mail and hate speech. In a post-reading discussion with Rebecca Prager, Head of Corporate Communications at Penguin Random House Verlagsgruppe, Kazim shared his experiences with hateful letters from readers and his perspective on freedom of expression and its limits.
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.
Together with readers throughout Germany, Penguin Random House Verlagsgruppe celebrated Read Aloud Day under the motto “Reading aloud creates a future.” Around 130 employees participated and held more than 230 reading sessions for over 5,000 children in kindergartens and elementary schools nationwide. Readers also brought nearly 2.000 books and audiobooks as gifts for the students. The campaign was supplemented by online video and livestream offerings.
We are proud to continue our partnership with the New York Public Library (NYPL). This program is part of our ongoing commitment to support a culture of reading and build the widest audiences for authors. This partnership with NYPL, where we tripled all donations made to the organization, helps to ensure that New Yorkers can utilize the vital services provided by their libraries free of charge, including access to books, computers, early literacy workshops, and job training classes.
Through a new partnership with Little Free Library, we are sponsoring 20 Little Free Library book-sharing boxes granted to high-need communities via Little Free Library’s Impact Library Program across the U.S., providing more than 500 mental health–focused books and over 30 titles for these libraries, and offering an additional 2,000 books for a national giveaway.
