Many Georgia Bulldogs fans know of Malcolm Mitchell from what he did on the football field. From 2011 to 2015, Mitchell dawned the red and black and played at a very high level. His best season was his redshirt senior year when he caught 58 passes for 865 yards and five touchdowns. Over his career he had 2,350 yards and 16 touchdowns.
Mitchell would go on to be drafted by the New England Patriots in 2016, where he would win a Super Bowl during his rookie season. Even though injuries cut his professional career short, Mitchell has found a way to do something even more honorable than sports, he's giving back to the community.
Read with Malcom: How Malcom Mitchell has changed young lives
In 2015, Mitchell launched Read with Malcolm, an initiative to make reading fun for children and improve literacy among students who were reading below grade level. The Share the Magic Foundation would be launched that same year, a nonprofit that is behind much of the funding for the initiative.
Since its launch, the impact has been felt by many. According to their website, the overall impact is a staggering 3,734,960 students served. Of those, 165,734 were from in-school programs and 3,569,226 were from READLeague, a virtual program brought up by the foundation. READLeague is virtual reading challenges that provide educators with a free platform used to engage students. Under the READLeague program includes READBowl, READCamp, READMarathon, and READMadness.
These free challenges how now reached across all 50 states and 18 countries. READMarathon alone generated more than 141 million minutes of reading in its latest campaign, with the next one being scheduled October 5th of this year.
The most compelling part of this story is the "why." Mitchell has stated before that when he entered Athens as a college freshman, he was reading at a middle school level. It was when he got to campus that he found the power of reading, stating that he "went to the picture book section of the bookstore. I started at the easiest spot, and I built from there.”
Since then, he has not only launched an initiative for reading, but he has also written several children's books that have been published across the nation. Mitchell has taken his personal journey and transformed that into a nationwide movement that has improved the lives of millions of impoverished children.
1926 Day
Every month on the 19th, the initiative uses Mitchell's former numbers (19 on the Patriots, 26 with the Bulldogs) and turns it into a celebration for the children. The Read with Malcolm website accepts donations of $19.26 to be put towards helping the organization, as it is a non-profit.
So on the 19th of August, today, I personally wanted to use it as a way to share the goodness Mitchell has done. Sharing this article and getting the word out to as many people as we can makes a difference. In sports, it is easy to lose sight of what is important. However, Malcolm Mitchell did not only never lose sight, he used sports as a gateway to transform the lives of others. That is what it is all about.
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