Fred Beans Auto Group announces $45K pledge to Bucks County Library

Fred Beans Automotive Group has been approved by the Pennsylvania Educational Improvement Tax Credit program (EITC) to contribute $45,000 a year over the coming two years to the Bucks County Library’s Summer Reading Program, which helps maintain reading skills through the summer school break for thousands of county children and teens.

The popular program — more than 10,000 children and teens participate and its summer-reading-related performances and other programming draw more than 35,000 county-wide — has been wholly funded by the automotive group for the past three years, ever since government funding cuts eliminated the program from the library system’s budget.

“The library would not be able to move ahead with this key program without the strong support of the Beans organization,” states Martina Kominiarek, Bucks library executive director. “Research shows that children will lose gains they’ve made in reading during the school year if they don’t read in the summer. And it can take up to four months to return to the same reading level achieved by the end of the previous school year.”

The state’s EITC program provides tax benefits to companies that donate to educational programs in their communities. Both the donor and the recipient are vetted for approval in order for the donor to receive the special tax credit for its gift. Fred Beans has been involved in the program for several years. The Beans organization often focuses its philanthropy on initiatives for education, children and families.

Shown in photo: Ran’D Shine, magician, works with an assistant from the audience this summer at the Bucks County Library, one of the performances that were part of the library’s 2014 Summer Reading Program, Fizz! Boom! Read!