The Los Angeles Dodgers and the Los Angeles Dodgers Foundation (LADF) today launched their second annual Dodgers Reading Champions Challenge, inviting youth from across Los Angeles County to read one million minutes during the campaign, which runs through August. Parents, educators and guardians can register students and learn more about the program at Dodgers.com/LAReads.
 
"Building off of the momentum of a historic 2017 season, we hope to continue to motivate children to read and get to one million minutes," said Naomi Rodriguez, Dodger Vice President of External Affairs and Community Relations. "By providing reading opportunities and access to books, we hope to create lifelong readers."
 
The Dodgers Reading Champions Challenge encourages children in first through eighth grade to track the time they spend reading online and offers participants the opportunity to win cool prizes. Students who read more than 30 minutes per day are rewarded with incentives which include monthly opportunities to be on the field at Dodger Stadium. In 2017, over 2,400 students, representing 585 schools, read more than 600,000 minutes. 
 
The Dodgers Reading Champions Challenge is a part of LA Reads, a program designed to help address the literacy crisis in Los Angeles and get children excited about reading. Its goals include improving overall reading frequency for school-aged children, increasing motivation to read for students who do or do not currently read, boosting likelihood to read on a regular basis and providing access to books to underserved children. In addition to providing grants to local organizations with literacy-based programming, the Dodgers and LADF conduct year-round reading events at local schools, libraries and non-profit organizations with Dodger players, wives, alumni, broadcasters and executives. Additionally, LADF in partnership with the Dodgers, builds literacy corners and hosts literacy events at Dodger Stadium.
 
Los Angeles has one of the lowest literacy rates in the country. Nearly four million people, more than half of Los Angeles County's working-age population, have low literacy skills, severely impacting their employment ability.