WH Smiths - Teesside Park give fantastic support to local authors and have done for several years now. They offer a very good percentage and massive coverage within the shops and signing sessions where authors stand to make a heathy cut if successful.
Also they have managed to get major injections of national funding to support literacy at the Riverside as part of Generation Red Family Zone - much of this is down to retiring manager Dave Brown who is a driving force along with Yvonne Ferguson behind the GRFZ where he volunteers every match on the Match Attax exchange but also providing backing from WHSmiths for rewards and awards for kids undergoing learning every game. They are working hard here to make sure our kids are literate - imagine coming to the Riverside a couple of hours before kick off and developing your reading skills with expert one to one help, with structured learning. If your reading books include football and your classroom has Boro badges on the wall and Boro players sometimes drop by to assist then it is going to make reading a whole lot more accessible, a whole lot cooler.
You probably didn't know all this so I thought I should let you know about how WH Smiths is committed to funding Boro literacy activities for another year - and it really is making a difference where it matters. It is a major commitment as well, at a time when not many charities can stretch this far.
So, am not saying anything about the shops but wanted you to know they really help Boro and the Boro community.
