Wandsworth Civic Award for charity founder

Learn to Love to Read founder and trustee, Teresa Harris, was awarded a Wandsworth Civic Award this week at a special ceremony hosted by the Mayor of Wandsworth. 

The Mayor of Wandsworth presents these awards annually to people who go out of their way to help others and who make outstanding contributions to their local community and the borough of Wandsworth as a whole. Teresa is pictured here with the Mayor of Wandsworth Juliana Annan, MP for Putney Fleur Anderson, the Learn to Love to Read staff team and three of the trustee board.

Teresa's vision was, and still is, to make every Wandsworth child a reader, no matter their background. Starting with just a handful of volunteers in one Wandsworth primary school, Learn to Love to Read became a registered charity in 2017. Today, as founder and trustee, Teresa has grown the charity to 60 volunteers working in eight Wandsworth primary schools with six part time members of staff. 

During the past nine years, Teresa has volunteered her time tirelessly to realise her goal of an organisation which is embedded in the local community, serves the whole family, provides continuity of support, targets the greatest need and is committed to providing high quality support. She also constantly works to expand the reach of the charity within the borough, developing partnerships with other local charities like Home-Start Wandsworth and CARAS, and new partner schools. Teresa is described as leading the charity's work with warmth, kindness and compassion and as having had an enormously positive impact on people's lives. 

We are so proud of Teresa and all she has achieved. 

You can watch the video made to celebrate her achievements here: Link to video

If you are interested in finding out more about how to support our ongoing work,
please contact [email protected].