• • Download your resources and start reading!

• Download Your User Guide Here. 

• Download other supplemental resources here. 

1. What is Read to Feed?
Read to Feed is a reading incentive and fundraising program for children that supports Heifer International. Participants obtain sponsorships from parents, friends and relatives based on the number of books (or units of time) they read. The goal is to promote reading and help Heifer assist millions of people around the world feed their families and reach self-reliance through the gifts of livestock and training.

2.  How long do you recommend that a group participate in Read to Feed?
The best part about Read to Feed is that you can customize your experience according to the time you have to devote to the program. For the full curriculum experience, three weeks is recommended.

Read to Feed is great for Thanksgiving or holiday breaks, spring break or even to do as a weekly activity for a month. It is also ideal as a supplement to the post-testing time in the spring.

3.  What Read to Feed materials are available?
All Read to Feed materials are free and available for download here.

4. Are there lesson plans associated with Read to Feed?
Yes, we encourage you to partner the Read to Feed program with our free lesson plans. These lessons are aligned with Common Core Standards for English Language Arts and Mathematics, Next Generation Science Standards, c3 social studies standards and professional organization standards for visual arts and more.

5. Do you have a recommended booklist for students?
Any book is a good book for Read to Feed! Teachers might encourage students to read a certain type of book, but it is not required by the Read to Feed program.

6. Do you have recommendations on ways to do group sponsorships instead of individual student sponsorships?
Yes, many Read to Feed leaders have asked civic groups, local businesses, or community neighborhoods to sponsor their children as a group, like the local Rotary club or neighborhood bookstore. The feedback we’ve received is that leaders find it easy to tell Heifer’s story to potential sponsors and to promote the idea of children changing the world. To help you get started, we have included a sample sponsor request letter in our Read to Feed Supplemental Resources Bundle.

7. If we choose not to use the apps, can our students still unlock donations from the app sponsors?
At this time, only students who track their reading within one of the Read to Feed Apps will be able to unlock donations from the app sponsors.

8. Do you have suggestions on how to implement Read to Feed in a non-competitive way?
Yes, for a program that emphasizes collaboration, you could ask the children to turn in their reading lists and sponsor donations confidentially at the conclusion of the program. The classroom then tallies up the total reading effort (books or units of time spent reading), and funds raised, and has a celebration!

Another suggestion is to enlist older students to partner with younger students.  This can be done in collaboration with a “big buddy” activity or even as a student leadership program for middle school students.

If there are classroom (rather than individual) sponsorships, the children could collectively track the number of books read or time spent reading by anonymously dropping reading slips (for each book or number of hours) into a box. At the end of the program, all slips are totaled and announced to the classroom sponsor(s).

9. Will Read to Feed sponsors receive a tax-deductible receipt?
Sponsors who donate online through a classroom’s fundraising website  will receive a receipt for their donation. Sponsors donating by check will receive a receipt by mail. The check must include the sponsor’s current contact information. Sponsors who wish to write a check should make their check payable to Heifer International: Read to Feed.

10. How do we send our donations to Heifer?
If your class created and used your own customized class fundraising page, it’s easy!  Sponsors simply donate online and the funds come directly to Heifer International.

However, some students may have had sponsors who preferred not to donate online.  Ask the children to collect their pledges- checks made payable to Heifer International: Read to Feed- and return them to their Read to Feed leader.

Total all sponsor pledges and discuss with the class or group which animal(s) to give.

You can use our  Living Gifts Activity Guide  or our  A Kid Can Change the World guide  for information about specific animals or other gifts. You may also wish to discuss how the chosen donation benefits the geographic area where Heifer has a project.

Fill out the  Donation Form  and mail the form and checks (no cash please) to:

Heifer International
P.O. Box 8058
Little Rock, AR 72202-8058

*To help the greatest number of families move toward self-reliance, Heifer does not use its limited resources to track individual animals from donation to distribution to specific families. Instead, your gift supports the entire Heifer Mission. We use your gift where it can do the most good by combining it with the gifts of others to help transform entire communities. Heifer’s unique community development model assisted more than 154,769 families last year with gifts of animals, training and passing on the gift. And another 1,835,643 families received significant benefits indirectly.

11. We would like to share our Read to Feed story with our local paper, is that OK?
Absolutely! We encourage you to tell your friends and the local media about your successful Read to Feed program. Kids love seeing their efforts in the newspaper. We have included a Sample Press Release in our downloadable  Read to Feed Supplemental Resources Bundle  to help you get started. Feel free to personalize it to meet your needs. We also invite you to share your story through your social media accounts. Be sure to tag Heifer so we can celebrate with you! We love to hear your success stories.

12. How do the animals and people work together?
Animals provide families with draft power, financial security, manure, wool, transportation and protein from milk, eggs and meat. Our project partners take great pride in owning livestock and consider their well-being as a primary responsibility. They provide their animals with protection from predators, clean water, food, exercise space, comfortable housing and humane treatment.

• • Create an account as an individual or family.
• • Teachers: Read our FAQs below to learn how to set up your class account.
• • If your school or library already uses Beanstack, search for the “Read to Feed” template to customize your challenge
• • If you don’t already have a Beanstack account, you can use ours!
• • Read, read, and read!
• • See how reading lifts families out of poverty.

Thank you to our generous sponsors

• • Anonymous Indiana donor challenges everyone to give in honor of Heifer’s 80th anniversary
• • St. John’s Mission Endowment
• • Springhill School, Petaluma
• • Growing Solutions
• • Jonas Philanthropies

• Download Your User Guide Here 

1. Can I access Read to Feed at home?
Yes! Read to Feed is a free app on the Beanstack platform that is available anywhere at any time, including a web based interface. All you need is a smart device!

2. How does the Beanstack app enhance the reading experience for students?
Read to Feed Beanstack is a reading platform, which allows students to create reading streaks, enter books or graphic novels, and track their reading time. There are cool Heifer videos that explain our mission and digital badges and achievements.

3. Our school/library already uses Beanstack for reading tracking. Do we have to re-register for Read to Feed?

No. In fact, you can customize a Read to Feed Challenge for your readers using the Read to Feed template in Beanstack. Simply log in as an admin and navigate to “challenges” to search for “Read to Feed” in templates. In the challenge description, you will see a registration form to complete for your school or library and you’ll be responsible for reporting your total number of readers and minutes read. For more information, here is a helpful video.

4. I am a teacher but our school does not currently have a Beanstack account. I would like to set up one or more classes within Beanstack. Is this possible?
Yes! Our Read to Feed team is eager to help you get your class started, but we need a little information from you. For each class enrolled in Read to Feed please email beanstack@heifer.org the following:

• State

• School Name

• Teacher Name

• Class or Period

We will then get each class set up so students can select their class when they set up their accounts. You’ll receive an email from us with YOUR login and password.  We will also send you a set-up guide that will guide your students step by step through the sign up process.

5. How can schools or educators assess the overall impact of the Read to Feed platform on students’ reading habits and literacy skills over time?
The Read to Feed Beanstack platform offers robust reporting and metrics so that teachers, schools and parents can assess how much their student reads. Please email beanstack@heifer.org to request a report.

6. How does the tracking feature work?
Books can be scanned in using an automatic ISBN reader or by entering the book manually. Reading can be tracked using a timer, by time increments, or by book completion.