Since November 1, 2013, Kayla has been conducting a read-a-thon to raise money for Room to Read, a globally recognized charity that partners with local communities in the developing world to promote literacy and equal educational opportunity for girls. (To learn more about Room to Read, go to RoomtoRead.org).

The goal of Kayla’s read-a-thon is to raise awareness of Room to Read’s mission and to raise the money needed to create one school library in India. She originally committed to read 5,000 pages in 5 months in order to raise $5,000, but she passed her 5,000-page goal in one month, and just kept going.  As of today, Kayla has read over 38,000 pages since starting her read-a-thon — an average of over 250 pages/day, seven days/week, for six months (all while preparing for her Bat Mitzvah and maintaining a straight-A average in school)!!  However, despite surpassing her reading goal, Kayla has not yet met her fundraising goal so she has been pursuing a variety of strategies to increase awareness of her read-a-thon and to raise money beyond that generated by read-a-thon sponsorships.