City National Awards Literacy Grants to Educators in 4 States Totaling Nearly $83,000

Program Has Awarded Over $1.8 Million Since Its Inception


LOS ANGELES, March 29, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- City National Bank today announced that it has awarded 91 Reading is The way up® literacy grants totaling close to $83,000 to support literacy-based projects as well as financial literacy to elementary, middle and high school teachers in California, Nevada, Georgia and Tennessee.

(For a list of all grant recipients, go to https://www.cnb.com/about-us/community/literacy-grants.html.)

Reading is The way up is the award-winning non-profit literacy program through which City National has donated over one million new books to elementary school libraries in California, Nevada, New York, Nashville, Tennessee, and Atlanta, Georgia, and awarded over 1,500 teacher grants to enhance literacy totaling more than $1.8 million since the program’s inception in 2005.

The literacy grants range from $500 to $1,000 and will help augment or expand literacy projects that were judged to be creative and engaging, and that would have a tangible effect on student achievement. The winning programs are expected to directly improve literacy through creative teacher driven initiatives and support striving readers in the classrooms across our market footprint.

The educators receiving literacy grants were selected from among the many full-time teachers, librarians, administrators and school media specialists who submitted an online application. The one-page application was available to educators in every school district throughout the bank’s footprint across the country in the fall of each year.

“City National is very proud of the support it has provided to hundreds of teachers in 9 states through its literacy grant program for the past 20 years,” said Jennifer Nickerson, senior vice president and community relations manager for City National. “This program is providing much needed support to teachers who are funding a lot of their extracurricular programs from their own pockets. The monetary support we provide to grant recipients helps augment the budget shortfalls teachers are experiencing every day in trying to educate our children.”

Some of this year’s grants funded various literacy programs such as ‘Readers are Leaders’ at Solano Elementary in California; ‘Ten Minutes a Day Keeps the Reading Blues Away’ at Amplus Academy in Nevada; ‘It Takes a Village’ at The Village School in Georgia; and, ‘Tech for Developing Better Readers’ at The Edison School in Tennessee.

About Reading is The way up®

Originally established to help improve the education of California’s future leaders, City National in April 2002 launched the multi-faceted Reading is The way up initiative to restock the state’s school library system. The program has since been expanded to include all areas where the bank has a presence.

The Reading is the Way Up Fund is a 501(c)(3) administered by the California Community Foundation. For more information, visit https://www.cnb.com/about-us/community/reading-is-the-way-up.html.

About City National

With $91.5 billion in assets, City National Bank provides banking, investment and trust services through 73 branches, including 19 full-service regional centers, in Southern California, the San Francisco Bay Area, Nevada, New York City, Nashville, Atlanta, Washington, D.C. and Miami*. In addition, the company and its investment affiliates manage or administer $96.2 billion in client investment assets.

City National is a subsidiary of Royal Bank of Canada (RBC), one of the world’s leading diversified financial services companies. RBC serves more than 17 million personal, business, public sector and institutional clients through offices in Canada, the United States and 27 other countries.

For more information about City National, visit the company’s website at cnb.com.

*City National Bank does business in Miami and the state of Florida as CN Bank.

Media Contact:
Paul Stowell, City National Bank, 213.673.7602
paul.stowell@cnb.com