Megastar Sharon Cuneta joins McDonald's campaign for kids' Bright Minds Read

By Lily O Ramos

MANILA, June 11 (PNA)--Showbiz megastar Sharon Cuneta on Thursday afternoon joined Ronald McDonald House Charities' (RMHC) and the Department of Education's joint campaign for love of reading among Filipino kids.

Sharon said the Cheeseburger Campaign is meant to raise P1 million for RMHC's banner program this year of creating Bright Minds Read (BMR)for future generations.

"I'm proud to have been a member of the RMHC for the past 14 years and I'm very happy that we have raised more than P1 million in less than two weeks where 100 BMR toolkits will be donated to 100 public elementary schools," said Ms. Cuneta at the McDonald's in Greenbelt, Makati City.

The donation, said Sharon, will equip 100 public elementary schools and thousands of Grade 1 pupils with 33 story books, pupil worksheets and a teacher's manual.

Bright Minds Read is actually an eight-year old program that aims to teach love of reading to pupils and students especially among those in public schools.

Since the program's inception in 2002, BMR has recorded a significant contribution in the reduction of non-readers among the youth.

Based on the 2002 Philippine Informal Reading Inventory (Phil-IRI), 40 per cent are non readers after Grade 1 while in 2009, Phil-IRI test and post-test results indicated that only 1.6 per cent of the total national elementary population are non-readers.

Going back to multi-awarded Sharon, she said that she has always been a voracious reader--that she reads everything that she can lay her hands from Nancy Drew to anything that is not stressful.

"I love to discover why famous people fail and what they do with their power. Look at what happened to Adolf Hitler or maybe Donald Trump," she said, stressing that reading feeds the mind and soul for information and general betterment of life.

"My house is full of thousands of reading materials ranging from books to magazines containing biographies, history, culture, arts, etc. Even my kids, Frankie and Miel have their own favorite reading materials--Nancy Drew and Harry Potter for Frankie and Miel, her dinasaurs. Likewise, my husband Kiko also has his own collection.

"Sometimes, we're in a house where we're like weird nerds because we are all occupied with our own reading," Sharon told mediamen.

The still pretty but now more on the heavy side mom of the now famous KC Concepcion, nine year old Frankie and seven year old Miel with second husband Sen. Pangilinan added her daughters also read bi-lingual and picture books to keep them updated on everything Filipino.

On the other hand, Margot Torres, vice president for marketing explained that more than just serving a great cheeseburger made from 100 percent pure beef and real American cheese, McDonald's created an avenue for customers to help the reading campaign because P50 centavos from every cheeseburger purchased is donated to the cause.

After extensive efforts starting from 14 pilot schools. there are now 2,200 schools covering all regions with 37,800 schools as the ultimate target.

"With the goal of making every school a part of the bright minds read program, we hope to have zero non-readers by 2012," said Torres. (PNA)
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