Did you know that you are able to donate a meal to others in need on Raz-Kids? No, you do not need money for doing it, but you just have to read the books and do the other Raz Kids activities to be able to donate a meal. How does it work? You are able to read the explanation below.
Donating a Meal on Raz Kids
If you want to donate a meal on Raz Kids, the things that you have to do is to read books, complete assignments and make learning gains. After that, you will get stars and the stars that you earned can be donated.
To donate the stars that you earned, you can log in to your Raz Kids account and then access the Star Zone. There, you have the option to donate your stars.
As explained on the Learning A-Z website, students who use Learning A-Z products such as Raz-Kids, Raz-Plus, Science A-Z, Headsprout, Vocabulary A-Z and Writing A-Z earned digital stars when they complete assignments, read books and make learning gains.
From September 4 through October 31 2020, there were more than 500 million digital stars which were collected from the students of Learning A-Z. It means that each of them read around 11 books and spent 2,415 stars. It increased from 10 books and 1,848 stars during the same time period in 2019.
The students of Learning A-Z can do this because of the partnership between Learning A-Z and UNICEF Kid Power. Through this partnership, students who use Learning A-Z online resources are able to convert the digital stars that they earned into real world impact. For U.S. students, they are able to redeem the stars for meals for people who face hunger in their communities. For students outside the U.S., they are able to donate clean water tablets to families in need around the world. This is as informed in the website of Learning A-Z.
A Story of a Raz Kids Student About Donating a Meal Through Digital Stars
A student named Luis Arizmendi, a Desert Learning Academy second grader was one of students who donated his stars for donating meals for those in need. As told in News Channel 3, Luis is an avid reader and he enjoys reading. He accumulated more than 23,000 stars for reading, listening and taking quizzes on the books that he read. Then, the stars were able to be converted into donations to meals for families in need. He said that he donated his stars because he felt bad for people who did not have money to buy food.
Luis had the option to be able to donate 8,000 stars for one meal or 20,000 stars for three meals to US families in need. He decided to donate 20,000 stars so that he could help more families.
Lynn Yada, the elementary teacher at Desert Learning Academy, said that she had other students reading books but they were not donating the stars. She had encouraged them to donate the stars, but most of them like to accumulate their stars and dress up their avatar. Joan Arellano, Luis Arizmendi’s mother said that she was emotional because she never expected that there was a kid that wanted to dress up their avatar and do stuff, but his child said that no, he could help others with the stars because he knew that he could get more stars.
Luis’s mother and teacher are very proud of him because he is reading at a 3rd grade level and he is in 2nd grade. They said that he had read more than 150 books and wanted to continue to collect stars to be able to donate to others.
Arellano said that helping others is the best way, you never knew one day it was us and one day it was other people that we could help and why not today we could do it. Then, Luis said that she wanted to just keep helping families.
Knowing More About Partnership Between Learning A-Z and UNICEF Kid Power
Learning A-Z partners with UNICEF Kid Power where with this partnership, students who use Raz Kids, Raz Plus, Science A-Z, Headsprout, Vocabulary A-Z and Writing A-Z are able to change the digital stars that they got into virtual coins that they are able to redeem to provide meals for local families in need.
Through this partnership, students who use the online resources in Learning A-Z can convert their digital stars to make a real world impact. For the students in the U.S., they are able to redeem the stars that they earned for meals for people who face hunger in their community. For students outside the U.S., they are able to donate clean water tablets to families in need around the world. For classroom which can donate the most stars, they will also have the chance to co-author a book for Learning A-Z and share their book with students using Learning A-Z around the world.
According to the article on Learning A-Z on February 16th, 2021, more than 88,000 meals were donated to U.S. families by students last fall. Starting March 5th, PreK-6 schools have another chance to motivate students to read and learn while motivating them to help families in need. Learning A-Z has set a goal where they want to collect 100,000 donations this spring.
Lisa O’Masta, president of Learning A-Z said that giving students a greater sense of purpose increased their engagement and motivated them to be able to reach new heights in their learning. She also said that they are thrilled to see the learning gains and the impact students made last fall. She added that they are excited to cooperate with UNICEF Kid Power to give students a chance to make a difference again this spring.
Troy Hickerson, co founder of UNICEF Kid Power said that these are kids helping other kids, which was very rewarding for students. He also said that some students did not believe that they were able to be in a position to help others, so when they got to really experience that, they were truly empowered.
