DAVID BRUCE SMITH’S GRATEFUL AMERICAN FOUNDATION GRANTS $25,000 TO WETA’S LITERACY WEBSITE ADLIT.ORG

WASHINGTON, D.C., January 26, 2022 — WETA President and Chief Executive Officer Sharon Percy Rockefeller announced today that David Bruce Smith’s Grateful American Foundation has granted $25,000 to WETA’s 2022 AdLit.org, a national multimedia project that provides educators and families resources to support adolescent readers and writers. As part of this partnership, WETA will become an official media partner of the Grateful American Book Prize, which honors outstanding authors of YA works of history, biography, and historical fiction.

“We are grateful for this gift from David Bruce Smith’s foundation underscoring his belief in the important work WETA’s AdLit does to foster education and literacy,” said Rockefeller. “David’s generosity reflects his parents’ longtime support of WETA. For more than 40 years, Clarice and Robert H. Smith extended their philanthropy to WETA Classical, PBS NewsHour’s coverage of the arts, and to The WETA Capital Campaign: Building the Future.”

The Foundation’s contribution will enable WETA to conduct interviews with current and previous Prize winners; to present the interviews on AdLit.org and YouTube; and to relaunch AdLit’s “Unlocking the Past” project. Unlocking the Past celebrates careful reading, critical thinking, thoughtful debate, and learning about what life was like in the past. It also gives teachers tools to prompt students to think, question, and behave like historians.

David Bruce Smith’s Grateful American Foundation is dedicated to restoring enthusiasm in American history for young people and adults. Founded on President’s Day 2014, the mission of the organization is to provide insight and to bump up interest in the people and events who established the United States.

AdLit.org is a national multimedia project that gives educators and families the resources they need to help students become better readers and writers. It also offers articles, blog posts, webcasts, a classroom strategy library, and advice via interviews with experts. Booklists by theme, and variegated titles, empower parents and educators to find works that match students’ interests to their reading levels.

WETA is the flagship public media station in the national capital area. WETA is the second-largest producing station for the PBS system in the United States and home to news and public affairs programs including PBS NewsHour and Washington Week; films by production partners Ken Burns and Dr. Henry Louis Gates, Jr.; and specials including In Performance at the White House and the Library of Congress Gershwin Prize for Popular Song. WETA creates a trove of trusted resources, including the Learning Media websites ReadingRockets.org, ColorinColorado.org, LDOnLine.org, AdLit.org, StartWithABook.org and BrainLine.org, which provide resources surrounding child development, literacy, education, the brain and mental health for educators, caregivers, military service members, veterans, and families in these critical areas. WETA serves the District of Columbia, Maryland and Virginia with content that educates and inspires on five television channels: WETA PBS, WETA UK, WETA Metro, WETA World; and WETA PBS Kids; on weta.org; and on the Classical WETA radio station and at classicalweta.org. More information on WETA programs and services is available at weta.org. Visit facebook.com/wetatvfm on Facebook or follow @WETAtvfm on Twitter.