About Our Kids Read

Incorporated in 2019, Our Kids Read is a MD-based 501c3 non-profit organization that serves the students across the United States. Our two core programs are: (1) donations of diverse books directly to children and also to the schools that they attend and (2) a Remote Reading Buddy program where students read with one of our volunteers in the evening via Zoom. Please “play” on the video embedded here to view a recent book donation event.

Company

URLs

Website: https://www.ourkidsread.org
Instagram: instagram.com/ourkidsreadinc
Facebook: facebook.com/ourkidsreadinc
Twitter: twitter.com/ourkidsreadinc

General Information

Founded: 2019
Employees: 3
Volunteers: 164
Headquarters: Laurel, MD

Press Contact

Jahmal Lake, Executive Director

Our Story

Our Kids Read was conceived in 2006 by Jahmal Lake and finally brought to life by a generous gift from his mother, Dr. Obiagele Lake, upon her passing in 2020. Dr. Lake specified that $50,000 of her son’s inheritance was to be used to start a program to uplift people of color and make a meaningful difference in their lives. Dr. Lake’s son, Jahmal Lake, chose literacy as mechanism by which to honor his mother’s legacy.

Understanding the Problem
Articulating the challenges African-American, Latinx and Indigenous people disproportionately face in American is not difficult. While there are pockets of achievement and success within all three of these communities, the vast majority of BIPOC communities are disproportionately impacted by issues of lack of education, inadequate access to financial resources and good paying jobs and poor healthcare systems. Making the decision about which of the myriad of issues that plague communities of color to attack first is not easy. Our Kids Read chose literacy only because education has traditionally been a reliable path out of poverty and lack of opportunity. Taking a look at the literacy statistics in the United States, a terrifying picture emerges: 18%, 19% and 23% of African-American, Indigenous and Latinx children, respectively. are reading at grade-level by the end of the 3rd grade. Said a different way, 82%, 81% and 77% of these communities ARE NOT reading at grade level, half-way through elementary school.

Architecting Part of the Solution
Our Kids Read understands that our programs alone will not solve the problem of low literacy rates in BIPOC communities. What we do hope, however, is that by creating a scalable, national program that make an appeal to ALL Americans to donate 30-minutes per week to read to a child, we will be able to move the literacy needle, ever so slightly. Our approach integrates the concepts of identity, choice and mentorship
- leveraging books featuring BIPOC characters, we aim strengthen our participants connection to the materials (IDENTITY)
- by allowing the children that participate in our program to *choose their own books* from our BIPOC book collection, we offer them a freedom to explore both their own interests as well as explore new territory (CHOICE)
- our mentors serve as another member of our students “tribe,” someone to laugh with, read with, tell about their day and share both their frustrations and triumphs (MENTORSHIP)

our team

Jahmal Lake

Executive Director, Executive Board Member

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Jahmal Lake brings years of leadership experience in the non-profit space as well as 20+ years of software engineering know-how to confront the challenge of literacy in underserved US communities. Lake's vision is to connect the millions of children who are below grade level in reading with millions of adult Americans looking to be mentors and reading partners.

Lake started his first non-profit, ImagineAccess, in 1998 in New York City with the mission to expose young people of color to coding and graphic design. ImagineAccess also partnered with the Harlem YMCA and a group of local NYC spoken word artists to give YMCA teens an opportunity to write poetry that was then converted into digital animation.

Lake's technical background includes coding and leading US-based and international teams to deploy complex web portals for companies like American Express, Bailey, Banks and Biddle and Riddell Sports.

In 2019, with the encouragement of his late mother Dr. Obiagele Lake, Jahmal founded Our Kids Read. Inspired by his mother's 50-year career in social justice and education, Lake leveraged a $50K gift from her to lay the foundation for an organization dedicated to sparking the joy of reading in children in underserved communities. In the first 18 months of inception, Our Kids Read has secured partnerships with Microsoft, Hallmark, Dell, Nike and Amazon, raised over a quarter million dollars and donated over 50,000 books to K-5th grade students.

Lake is responsible for overseeing all facets of the organization, driving the mission, fundraising, operations, and engagement with the board of directors. Lake has single-handedly grown the organization from an idea to a national organization that has served over 20,000 children in the last 18 months by aligning the day-to-day work with values around diversity, equity, community and education.

Personal: In his "free time" Lake enjoys spending time with his wife, Andria Lake and his two boys, Thomas and Tefari. He also enjoys traveling, reading, playing tennis/attending tennis tournaments, weight lifting, tinkering with gadgets and tech, as well as watching movies.

Karen Ali, Esquire

Advisory Board Member

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Karen Ali is active in the community, serving as president of the Board of Trustees of the New Jersey State Museum Foundation and on the boards of Our Kids Read, the Executive Board to The Auxiliary to the Isabella McCosh Infirmary (Princeton University), Association of Black Princeton Alumni (ABPA), Princeton AlumniCorps, the Latin American Legal Defense and Education Fund, and Passion of Hope International-US.

Karen is also active in several Princeton University alumni activities. In 2018, Karen received ABPA's Alumni Service Award. In 2013, she volunteered through Princeton AlumniCorps’ ARC Innovators program for Good Grief, Inc. and edited an anthology of children’s essays, The Invisible Tattoo: True Stories about Children Grieving, Living, and Loving After Loss (2014). For more than 20 years, she has served as an administrator for the Fred Fox Class of 1939 Fund, a program that provides grants to students for academic-related projects.

Karen retired from the New Jersey Hospital Association, a healthcare trade association in Princeton, NJ where she served as senior vice president for community partnerships and prior to that role, general counsel.

Karen received her Bachelor’s degree in Sociology, magna cum laude from Princeton University in Princeton, NJ and her Juris Doctor degree from the University of Michigan Law School in Ann Arbor, MI. She is a member of the New York and Virginia State bars and the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia federal bar.

Karen lives in Princeton Junction, NJ with her spouse, Deighton Weekes. She is the proud mother of Justin (Adelphi University ’19; New York Film Academy, MA ’22) and grandmother of Nahla, Sufyan and Maya from her daughter-in-law Aaliya and stepson Jamey. In honor of her son and parents, Karen established the Ali-Weekes Endowed Scholarship at Adelphi in 2019 for students pursuing Communications degrees.

Kamil Ali-Jackson, Esquire

Advisory Board Member

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Kamil Ali-Jackson, Esquire is an independent director, life sciences entrepreneur and a co-founder of several specialty pharmaceutical and biopharmaceutical companies which were successfully transitioned through multi-million-dollar acquisitions by global life science companies. Kamil’s career spans almost four decades of experience as a C- suite leader, legal counsel, and business partner with emerging, mid-size and large life sciences companies.

Kamil has extensive legal, mergers and acquisitions, business development, product licensing, corporate governance, compliance, and human resources experience. While building her own companies, Kamil gained valuable expertise regarding the importance of establishing company cultures which place “equitable” value and emphasis on developing and supporting an organization’s people, mission, and economic interests as well as the interests of the communities within which her companies were located.

Kamil is a Class of 1981 alumna from Princeton University and was recently elected as a trustee to the board of Princeton University by her fellow alumni. She is also an inaugural member of the Princeton University Dean for Research External Advisory Council for Innovation and Entrepreneurship and START Entrepreneurs, a Princeton University academic-based innovation incubator program. In addition, Kamil serves on the board of directors of two NASDAQ-listed biotechnology companies and as a strategic advisor for privately held companies and nonproﬁt organizations, and is an adjunct lecturer at the University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School.

Kamil received a Juris Doctorate from Harvard Law School and a Bachelor of Arts in politics from Princeton University. Kamil is married to an attorney, Michael Jackson, Princeton University Class of 1979 and is the mother of four children-two lawyers and one law student, including Karis Jackson, Princeton University Class of 2018.

Kamil embraces the servant-leader model of leadership which focuses on creating opportunities to develop and thrive, not only for yourself, but for others. For Kamil, OKR is a stellar example of how to put that leadership model in practice by developing and supporting the next generation of leaders through literacy. Kamil believes reading is the key to realizing an individual’s full potential which is why she is passionate about Our Kids Read’s mission to use reading as the catalyst to develop the potential of our children.

Adam Aronson

Advisory Board Member

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Antonia Baker

Advisory Board Member

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Beth Brett

Advisory Board Member

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Tom Clarkson

Advisory Board Member

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Shawn Cole

Advisory Board Member

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Lisa Dunkley

Advisory Board Member

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Born in New York and raised in central new Jersey, Lisa Dunkley’s passion for books and reading was firmly established by the time she went Princeton University, from which she graduated in 1983 with a degree in English, a certificate in American Studies, and a thesis prize. After attending an intensive summer publishing course at Radcliffe College, Lisa decided to pursue a career in book publicity at Dell Publishing, and then at Doubleday. She found enormous joy in reading new books and authors, and helping readers to discover them. Lisa would take advantage of the companies’ continuing education programs,to earn a master’s degree in English from New York University. At that time the publishing industry was being transformed by mergers and acquisitions, and Lisa’s future seemed uncertain. She learned that Princeton’s new admission dean, Fred Hargadon, was looking for recent alumni to join the staff. As a former tour guide chair and student panelist, Lisa was drawn to the opportunity —and was thrilled to be in the newly hired group. She returned to campus in 1988. During the interview process she told Dean Hargadon she could see herself staying at Princeton for as long as five years. It would turn out to be a little longer than that.

In 1994 Lisa would begin a newly created position in the university’s annual fund oﬃce, focused on researching and sharing the stories of gifts, donors, honorees and beneﬁciaries. The projects required signiﬁcant time in libraries and other collections, and led to a revelation: maybe Lisa should become a librarian—and then she’d have to go there every day! Rutgers University had one of the best programs in the country, and with the unselﬁsh support of her boss, Lisa completed her degree going to school kart-time for three years. She had worked with the University Librarian on several projects through the years, and was surprised and deeply moved to be appointed to a 3-year position, and it was in her dream department: Special Collections. Lisa helped develop exhibitions, processed collections, and worked with the Friends, but her greatest joy was helping students and visitors through public services at the reference desk.

Lisa’s fundraising background helped her create a much-needed database of endowed library funds (about 200 at the time), which she did with assistance from the treasurer’s office. When her library appointment came to a close, she was hired by the same group in the treasurer’s office to continue this work, but now for all of the university’s endowed funds (about 1200). Two years later, as this project neared completio, a new permanent position was created in the donor relations department within University Advancement. Its focus was a nearly perfect blend of the jobs Lisa most enjoyed: she researched the histories of gifts, and created impact reports for donors to understand how their gifts are used. It is the position Lisa would hold for the longest time—15 years—and it would be her last. Lisa retired from Princeton in 2019 after 30 years. She remains in the area, as she plans the next stages of her life, which will include music, sports (MLB and college basketball) and, always and forever, libraries, books and reading.

Jaffet Ghebretnsae

Advisory Board Member

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Lauren MacDonell

Advisory Board Member

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Marquis Parker

Advisory Board Member

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Marquis Parker is an accomplished executive with broad- based experiences grounded in business operations, strategy, services, and organizational improvement. Over the past 20+ years, he has established a reputation for identifying operational and ﬁnancial risks/opportunities and developing viable solutions; being deployed in complex, mission-critical situations and quickly delivering results; and balancing a “big picture” perspective with strong detail-orientation to drive impact.

Currently, Marquis serves as Vice President of Global Product Commercialization for Indeed, an HR technology ﬁrm that connects millions of job seekers to new opportunities. In this role, he drives key business decisions, delivers on strategic initiatives, and identiﬁes value crafted on opportunities to support the growth of Indeed’s products around the world. A former Software Engineer, Marquis began his business career as a consultant at McKinsey & Company, where he advised both private and public sector clients on a range of topics, including organization design, post-merger management, performance transformation, and growth strategy. Later,
he held multiple business operations and strategy leadership roles at Relativity (Chicago-based software company in the LegalTech sector), Aon plc (global ﬁnancial services and human capital ﬁrm), Waterstone Group Holdings (Chicago-based private equity investment and strategic advisory holding company), and Management Recruiters International Inc. (former portfolio company of AE Industrial Partners in the human capital sector).

Hailing from a small rural town in Virginia, Marquis holds degrees from Princeton University (A.B. in Computer Science), Stanford University (M.B.A. and M.A. in Education), and the University of Virginia M.S. in Management of IT). He is a true believer in the power of education to open up doors to opportunity and create new pathways for people's lives. The mission of Our Kids Read speaks directly to his values and he is excited to play a small part in the great work that it strives to do for children around the world.

Aaron A

Advisory Board Member

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Aaron A. Shipp, PCC, is the Founder and CEO of The Ivy Edge, LLC—a college admissions consulting firm that serves as a trusted advisor to students and families who intend to successfully apply to selective colleges and universities. Aaron is also the Founder & President of Y-Apply, Inc., a national 501(c)3 nonprofit organization dedicated to helping bright and talented public-school students and their families with financial aid options and the application process to top-tier colleges and universities. With both The Ivy Edge and Y-Apply, Aaron has helped thousands of students from across the nation and world successfully apply to America’s most selective institutions of higher learning. Aaron also spent two years as an adjunct instructor for New York University's School of Professional Studies (SPS), designing and teaching courses on the college application process and leadership development to high school students all over the world that participate in SPS's online programs.

Before working in college admissions, Aaron worked as a professional development coach and consultant in New York City with a specific emphasis on leadership development and corporate communications. Aaron worked with New York City- and San Francisco-based consulting firms serving business professionals from Fortune 100 companies in the financial services, insurance, accounting and high-tech industries. Mr. Shipp also operated a private personal and professional development coaching practice where he assisted clients with career transitions, entrepreneurship and enhancing executive presence. Mr. Shipp also worked in the Corporate & Investment Banking Division of Wachovia Securities as a senior operations consultant. Before transitioning to the corporate sector, Aaron worked as a professional stage actor, working in off-Broadway, regional and international theaters.

Aaron is a proud 1996 graduate of Yale University and has been active in his alumni community in various capacities. Aaron served on the Yale Alumni Association Board of Governors for two years. He was a founding member of the Yale Black Alumni Association, led its New York City chapter for many years, and served on its board of directors. He also served on the board of the Yale Alumni Association of New York as its Director of Outreach and as a former Vice-President. Before leaving New York City to return to his home state of North Carolina, Aaron attended Marble Collegiate Church and was a member of its LGBTQ leadership team. He has also served on the board of Time Out Youth, an LGBTQ youth advocacy group.

Aaron now happily lives in the Research Triangle Park near Durham, North Carolina. In his spare time, Aaron enjoys working out, reading, and enjoying life in the Raleigh-Durham area.

Eugene Wright

Advisory Board Member

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Medical Director Performance Improvement
South Piedmont Area Health Education Center (AHEC) Charlotte, NC
Dr. Eugene E. Wright, Jr. hold an appointment as Consulting Associate in the Department of Medicine of Duke University Medical Center.
Dr. Wright has over 40 years of clinical experience as a private practitioner, academic clinician and educator, medical administrator, a rural physician in southeastern NC and a volunteer physician. From 2000 to 2013, he served in several roles within the Cape Fear Valley Health System including Medical Director for Primary Care and Speciality Services and Chief Medical Officer for the health system.
Dr. Wright serves as an Associate Editor of Clinical Diabetes, and has served on several advisory and editorial boards to include Diabetes Technology and Therapeutics and as a content reviewer for UpToDate. He served as the inaugural chair of the ADA Primary Care Interest Group, as a member of the ADA/AHA Know Diabetes by Heart Science Advisory Group and in several leadership roles with the ADA Clinical Conference. Dr. Wright has published numerous articles on diabetes diagnosis, treatments and management and has given presentations at national and international meetings on new treatments and technology for diabetes.
Dr. Wright has an undergraduate BSE in Electrical Engineering from Princeton University (1973) and a medical degree from Duke University School of Medicine (1978). He completed his internship and residency in Internal Medicine at Duke University Hospital in 1981.
Personal: Gene enjoys traveling internationally with his wife of over 50 years. He also enjoys skiing with his wife and grandson and spending time with his family.

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