Helping seriously ill children: where the money goes
Readathon is not just about reading for pleasure. Children also love to raise sponsorship money while they complete their reading challenge. It adds to their sense of achievement and they’ve told us they particularly want to help seriously ill children.
Since Readathon was founded in 1984, children have raised millions of pounds through Readathon. We use this money to support charities for seriously ill children and to give free books to schools.
Our chosen charities
CLIC Sargent: Every day 10 children and young people in the UK are told they have cancer. CLIC Sargent is the UK's leading cancer charity for children and young people, providing care and support for them and their families from diagnosis, during treatment and beyond. We think they’re amazing. You can find out more here.
Roald Dahl’s Marvellous Children’s Charity: This charity was set up by Roald Dahl's widow in 1990. It specialises in helping children with serious neurological or blood conditions, providing children’s nurses, equipment, carers and toys, working with hospitals and care organisations or directly with patients. This charity is as marvellous as the children it helps. You can find out more here.
ReadWell: Reading and storytelling make life better for seriously ill children in hospital. Yet very often these children don’t have access to age-appropriate, good quality books which are germ-free enough to be on the wards. This is why, in 2010, we set up ReadWell, to provide books and storytellers for children in hospital. Now we channel some of the money raised through Readathon – and money from direct donations – to help these children. You can find out more here.
Free books for schools
For many schools financial constraints limit library stock. So we've joined forces with Scholastic Book Clubs to offer free books to all schools who run a Readathon – to the value of 20 per cent of the sponsorship each school raises.
Schools may also opt to donate their free book voucher to ReadWell so that we can buy books on their behalf for seriously ill children.
