Carmel Hill Fund Education Program
20 Years of cultivating literacy and a lifelong love of reading
For 20 years, the Carmel Hill Fund Education Program promoted literacy and fostered a love of reading, particularly among at-risk youth in inner cities.
About the program
Our three program sites in New York City, Colorado and Louisiana were fueled by the passions of our dedicated staff and partner educators in more than 100 schools. This work enabled thousands of young readers each year to feel supported, inspired, and encouraged in their reading journey by the presence of vibrant reading cultures and integrated assessment and practice solutions into educators’ instructional practices.
In 2025, Carmel Hill Fund transitioned into solely a grantmaking organization, concentrating its resources in New York City with an equal emphasis on youth mental health and literacy outcomes. This next chapter builds upon the legacy of the Carmel Hill Fund Education Program by exploring innovative strategies to foster literacy skills in young people and inspire a lifelong love of reading.
Program highlights: 3 Program Sites | 100+ Partner Schools | 8.5M+ Books Gifted
Program Impact
A shared mission tailored to
community needs
While the implementation of the Education Program across the three program sites was rooted in our founder’s dedication to supporting students’ literacy proficiency and love of reading, the needs of each community and our commitment to collaboration helped us build deep partnerships.
New York City
New York City is at the heart of our story
Colorado
Our next chapter built student literacy in Denver
Louisiana
Turning the page on reading progress in Monroe
New York City
New York City is at the heart of our story
Since the Fund’s establishment in 1986, our roots have been strongly tied to the literacy needs of youth in New York City. Launched in 2001 as a literacy intervention to help students at St. Paul’s Academy and as part of Bill Ruane’s support for young people growing up on 118th Street, the initiative formally expanded in 2004 as the Carmel Hill Fund Education Program. Since then, CHFEP has partnered annually with 50 public, parochial and charter schools in New York City.
Just as our founder believed, reading and literacy were considered critical to youth not only for their academic advancement, but in shaping their point of view and contribution to society.
Program highlights:
- A focus on access to Education Technology Solutions for our partner schools, providing cutting-edge education software, including reading practice and literacy assessment solutions.
- A suite of Professional Development Modules to provide customized support and coaching on independent reading best practices and instruction on how to use data to guide student instruction and interventions.
- Our Library Renovation Projects, which provided additional investment in a select number of partner schools to design and renovate physical libraries to create safe spaces to enhance reading enjoyment.
- The Read Up Challenge, consisting of three rounds of incentives to challenge students to grow in their reading over the course of the school year.
- The William Ruane Scholarship, which provided funding for gifted and talented middle school students to attend the Summer Institute for the Gifted (SIG), held at Yale University, Bryn Mawr College or Princeton University for three weeks in the summer. Social-emotional learning workshops helped the selected students get to know one another and prepare them for the summer institute.
Fanon J. Howell, Ph.D. was with the New York City project of the Education Program since 2007, assisting in strategic growth and expansion of school partners before becoming the Director in 2017. Learn more about the programs, partners, and successes in the New York City Impact Report.
Words from our partners in New York City
Colorado
Our next chapter built student literacy in Denver
With success in New York City, in 2004 Mr. Ruane expanded the Education Program to a second location in Denver, Colorado with the goal of reaching even more children across the country. The program began with a core focus on independent reading. Nearly two decades later, the team launched two specific and unique initiatives to support students, teachers and administrators with more targeted interventions, originally in response to COVID-19 learning-related challenges:
- The READS Tutor Program helped students who are dramatically below grade level proficiency in reading progress through the stages of reading development – decoding, vocabulary development, and background knowledge. Highly skilled tutors helped identify areas in which students needed additional support and implemented interventions to address these gaps.
- Our Structured Literacy Initiative was a progression of the READS program, providing the highest level of evidence-based, effective reading and spelling instruction during the school day to the most impacted students within our partner schools. To support this unique program, we offered a two-year therapy level structured literacy reading intervention training and certification in the science of reading at no cost to the child, family, educator or school.
In addition to these specialty programs, the Fund provided customized implementation support, technology, resources and assistance to help partner schools succeed.
With Carmel Hill Fund’s transition to focus in New York City, the organization made a final legacy grant to launch a new literacy initiative, Colorado Reads, to support cohorts of schools meet short-term student literacy needs while also developing capacity in each school to independently and effectively deliver high-quality, targeted literacy instruction and enrichment activities.
Eileen McMahon directed the Colorado project of the Education Program since its inception. Learn more about the programs, partners and successes in the Colorado Impact Report.
Words from our partners in Colorado
Louisiana
Turning the page on reading progress in Monroe
The Education Program’s expansion to northern Louisiana came through Bill Ruane’s and Carmel Hill Fund’s commitment to a mental health program called Teen Screen, a suicide awareness and prevention program. A parent who lost her child to suicide reached out to Bill to discuss bringing Teen Screen to their community and when it turned out she was also a librarian, he saw the opportunity for his original vision to come to life. That parent librarian was Margie Godwin, who became the first area director of the Louisiana program.
To promote independent reading and the love of a book, the Louisiana project incorporated several signature initiatives to help students become voracious readers:
- Read the Day Away was an annual one-day reading celebration in partner schools and includes students and teachers dressing as book characters and local community leaders, high school and college students and athletes returning to the schools to read with children and showcase the joy of reading.
- Book vending machines were an innovative new way for book delivery that promoted literacy and encouraged positive behavior. As students earned tokens for the book vending machines, they were also able to build a print-rich home library – a symbol of individuality, choice and hope.
- The A’s for J’s incentive program in partner upper elementary and middle schools rewarded students for reading, taking progress quizzes and achieving high scores by entering them into a drawing for a pair of Jordan sneakers per grade level. The program was so successful that local business owners and community members donated additional pairs of shoes to help increase the chances of winning.
With Carmel Hill Fund’s transition to focus in New York City, the organization made a final legacy grant to launch Turning Pages, a new organization committed to the development of voracious readers through tutoring, family engagement, and literacy-rich enrichment activities in Northern Louisiana.
Allison Paininch joined Carmel Hill Fund Education Program in 2008, becoming the Director of the Louisiana project in 2019. Learn more about the programs, partners and successes in the Louisiana Impact Report.