Monday brought me to Austin, TX for the first time.  I was there to welcome eBay and PayPal employees of their local office’s eBay GIVE team to Rodriguez Elementary School, where they were to read to a bilingual reading group and present 500 brand new books to the school’s library.

The Austin event was the first of three First Book reading parties held this week nationwide in celebration of eBay’s commitment to First Book and children in need everywhere and deliver 500 brand new books to each of three schools.  On Tuesday First Book’s Vice President of Communications Joan Sahlgren flew to Omaha, NE, where she met over 30 enthusiastic PayPal employees ready to read to children at at Martin Luther King Elementary School.  (Special guests included Omaha Public Schools Superintendent John MacKiel and LaVista Mayor Doug Kindig, among many others.)  The final event was hosted this morning in Los Angeles at Broadway Elementary School.

The events celebrated eBay Foundation’s extraordinary support of First Book and commitment to elevating the quality of education for children in need nationwide through their Community Gives initiative.  In April eBay Foundation provided a seed grant of over $300,000 to support First Book’s effort to identify and connect 50,000 new groups with First Book resources, in addition to distributing over 300,000 brand new books to children in need nationwide.