CHARLESTON, W.Va., November 20, 2019 – On one day in November every year, a small army of Appalachian Power employees fans out to hundreds of elementary schools across West Virginia, Virginia and Tennessee. Tucked under the arms of line mechanics, meter readers, customer call center representatives, power plant workers and engineers is a children’s book.

This year, Thursday, Nov. 21, is the day set aside as Read to Me Day, and more than 300 employees are reading to more than 20,000 students at about 420 schools. They then leave the book with the school as a donation to the school library.

“We support education in many ways and at all levels, from Pre-K to higher education,” said Chris Beam, Appalachian Power president and a volunteer reader. “But Read to Me Day is special. It’s a boots-on-the-ground way we can show every school we serve that we value education and support what they do. Even more important, it’s a way to show children that reading is important.”

The science behind good reading skills is clear. Research shows that when children become good readers by third grade, they are more likely to perform well in other subjects and graduate high school. It is the key building block to developing skills that lead to college and career success.

Appalachian Power started participating in Read to Me Day in 2001 and estimates that it has read to more than 275,000 students and donated about 6,500 books since then.

This year, employees are reading the book The Boy Who Touched the Stars, by José Hernández, in honor of the 50th anniversary of the moon landing. The autobiography describes the author’s journey as the son of migrant workers from Mexico to becoming an astronaut on the Space Shuttle Discovery.

Appalachian Power has 1 million customers in Virginia, West Virginia and Tennessee (as AEP Appalachian Power). It is part of American Electric Power, which is focused on building a smarter energy infrastructure and delivering new technologies and custom energy solutions. AEP’s more than 17,000 employees operate and maintain the nation’s largest electricity transmission system and more than 219,000 miles of distribution lines to efficiently deliver safe, reliable power to nearly 5.4 million customers in 11 states. AEP is also one of the nation’s largest electricity producers with approximately 32,000 megawatts of diverse generating capacity, including 4,300 megawatts of renewable energy.