For 20 years, American Electric Power employees have celebrated Read to Me Day by sharing a special read aloud book with students in elementary schools across West Virginia, Virginia and Tennessee. It is an American Electric Power tradition.
This year, the company has selected the book Someone Builds the Dream, by Lisa Wheeler, for the program. The book, read by Aaron Walker, Appalachian Power vice president distribution, was added to the company’s read-aloud collection of 21 videos on YouTube, and a copy was donated to each school library.
The YouTube video playlist was provided exclusively to all 450-plus elementary schools in the company’s West Virginia, Virginia and Tennessee service territory for educational use.
“Read to Me Day is a way that we can show every school we serve that we value education and support what they do,” said Chris Beam, Appalachian Power president and a volunteer reader. “We are looking forward to the day when we can visit our local schools and read in-person, but our YouTube playlist has been well received and allows educators the ability to access the reading of great read-aloud stories year-round.”
American Electric Power started participating in Read to Me Day in 2001 and estimates that it has read to 280,000 students and donated about 7,500 books since then.
American Electric Power is one of the largest electric companies in the United States. AEP is focused on building a smarter energy infrastructure and delivering new technologies and custom energy solutions to customers. AEP’s more than 18,000 employees operate and maintain the nation’s largest electricity transmission system and more than 219,000 miles of distribution lines to efficiently deliver safe, reliable power to nearly 5.4 million regulated customers in 11 states. AEP also is one of the nation’s largest electricity producers with approximately 32,000 megawatts of diverse generating capacity, including 4,340 megawatts of renewable energy.
