As a way of giving back to the community every year, IREX holds a silent auction of gift donations made by staff and IREX service providers during our annual holiday party. The entire proceeds from the auction are donated to a charitable organization in the Washington Metropolitan Area. This year, we had the pleasure of making our donations to The Reading Connection [5], a local non-for-profit that is dedicated to improving the lives of at-risk children and families by helping them create and sustain literacy-rich environments and motivation for reading.
The Reading Connection (TRC) was founded in 1989 by a group of educators as a service project of the Greater Washington Reading Council [6]. They noticed the children they taught who lived in homeless shelters were unfamiliar with books and faced huge obstacles in learning how to read. Volunteers first began reading with children in a small emergency shelter located in Arlington, Virginia. Over the years, TRC has expanded the Read-Aloud program to 13 shelters and community centers in the Washington Metropolitan Area. TRC also provides staff trainings, parent workshops, and a Book Club in English and Spanish for the staff and clients of several social service agencies. Please consider volunteering with TRC!
This was the largest silent auction that IREX has ever held, with generous donations from our vendors and partners throughout the year. IREX staff also were creative in their donations, contributing their wide range of talent from professional beer tasting to horse riding lessons to jam making! In total, IREX raised $13,254 in donations!