Hannah McRae Young may only be a high school freshman, but she has already started her own community service project for cheerleaders. Her program, CheerReaders, was formed for cheerleaders and cheerleading teams looking for a meaningful community service activity. The purpose of the program is to inspire children to read and be passionate about it, and that is Hannah’s goal for cheerleaders across the country!As a child, Hannah was addicted to two things: reading and cheerleading. She says, “I either had my nose in a book or was at the gym tumbling.”
A native of Kernersville, North Carolina, Hannah discovered her love for gymnastics at a young age. As she got older, she decided to try out for her gym’s competitive cheerleading squad to prepare for tryouts at her middle school. She is now a cheerleader at East Forsyth High School and Cheer Extreme Allstars in Kernersville.
Hannah’s mother, Monica Young, is a children’s book reviewer for the Winston-Salem Journal, so there has never been a time in Hannah’s life when she wasn’t surrounded by books. Her strong passion for reading didn’t go unnoticed by Monica so in 2008, she gave her daughter the opportunity to join her in writing the column. The column’s name changed from “Young Reading” to “Young Reading with Monica and Hannah Young,” and just like that, Hannah had writing job at the age of 15!
“It wasn’t much of a change because I had been recommending books to put in the column since she started writing it three years earlier,” explains Hannah. When she started her freshman year of high school, her goal was to find a community service project that she was passionate about to continue throughout her high school years. Soon, she formed CheerReaders. Hannah has dedicated a lot of time to her newly formed project, and she feels CheerReaders is a realistic community project any cheerleader or cheerleading team can take on.
After testing the program, she has found that it works best for younger children, from Kindergarten through second grade. The most important part of the program is reading one-on-one with a child. Hannah says the program is especially great for special needs classes.
“The kids get very excited when their very own cheerleader will be coming to read to them,” says Hannah. “Most of them are shy at first but warm up quickly when they get to shake pom pons or get into the story being read.”Hannah hopes this program spreads across every school district in the country, and she wants you to get involved! For cheerleaders, this is a great program that you can do with your team, in pairs, or individually. Not only will you earn community service hours, but you’ll know you have helped a child reach his or her goal to get reading!
Involvement in CheerReaders is free for all schools and takes less than 30 minutes at a time per session. Becoming involved in this program could change a child’s life for the better. For more information on Hannah and the CheerReaders project, go to http://cheereader.com.
