LeVar Burton had no trouble crowdfunding Reading Rainbow for the web; now, he’d like your help bringing it to living rooms and pockets everywhere. His team has announced a $5 million stretch goal that, if reached, will port his literary initiative to mobile devices, game consoles and set-top boxes. Yes, that would return the program to TV after an eight-year hiatus. The goal would also expand free student access to from 1,500 classrooms to 7,500. Burton already has over $3 million as we write this, but there’s still some distance to go.
LeVar Burton’s Kickstarter campaign to bring back Reading Rainbow has already proved phenomenally successful, and the project’s organizers are now looking to take the project to gaming consoles, mobile devices and other places. The educational program originated as Reading Rainbow, a Peabody- and Emmy Award-winning children’s television series that was hosted by Burton and aired on PBS from 1983 to 2006. Burton relaunched it as an iPad app in 2011, and launched aKickstarter campaign earlier this week to bring Reading Rainbow to the web and to schools everywhere. The funding drive had a goal of $1 million, which would have allowed the Reading Rainbow organization to provide the software for free to 1,500 schools in need. Contributors blew past the original goal in 11 hours. As of this writing, less than three full days since the beginning of the campaign, it has pulled in more than $2.85 million from over 64,000 backers. In a Kickstarter update posted this afternoon, Burton announced a stretch goal of $5 million.
