May 8, 2015

Photo of Renaissance Learning staff with Quizzing for Nepal cheque
Managing Director Dirk Foch and members of the Renaissance Learning team present a cheque for Médecins Sans Frontières following the Quizzing for Nepal fundraising initiative‎.

Poster for Quizzing for Nepal

Students in 2,746 schools across the UK and Ireland took Accelerated Reader quizzes on Friday 1st May as part of the Quizzing for Nepal fundraiser. Between them, they took 96,993 AR quizzes – a record number of quizzes taken in a single day.

The initiative was launched following the news of the tragic earthquake in Nepal on 25th April. Over 7,000 people are known to have died in the disaster, with a large humanitarian effort responding to the crisis. We asked schools using AR to support our fundraising initiative by reading as many books as they could and taking quizzes with AR, hoping to break the record for the number of quizzes taken in a single day. Renaissance Learning has donated £1,000 to Médecins Sans Frontières‎ in support of its work in the region.

Dirk Foch, Managing Director of Renaissance Learning, commented on the fundraising:

I am thrilled with the support our customer schools have shown for the Quizzing for Nepal initiative. It is a great encouragement to see so many students at so many schools supporting an important cause by doing something so simple yet so powerful – reading books and taking quizzes. Their enthusiasm and commitment is demonstrated by the new record set for most AR quizzes in single day: an incredible 96,993! On behalf of the whole team here at Renaissance, I want to thank every student, teacher and librarian who helped to support this appeal for the people of Nepal.

As part of the fundraising effort, Laburnum House Educational kindly donated £1,000 worth of books to both a Primary and a Secondary school. The winning schools have been drawn at random and contacted. We hope to announce the winners early next week, so watch this space!

Fuller details of the Médecins Sans Frontières earthquake appeal can be found on their website.

Showing support on social media

Several schools got in touch with us on Twitter (@AccReader) to show their support during the day. Some ran competitions between classes; others dedicated additional time to reading and quizzing; still more saw their libraries full at lunchtime as students took every opportunity to contribute to the total. This is just a selection of the messages we received through the day:

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