The Charlotte-based Leon Levine Foundation will give $10 million in two grants to help childhood literacy. The grants will give thousands of North Carolina families in the state’s most economically distressed counties access to books and literacy support.
The multi-year investments will expand the work of three nonprofit partners — Reach Out and Read North Carolina, Book Harvest, and North Carolina Partnership for Children, backbone agency for Smart Start — to bring early literacy programs to North Carolina families and put more children on the path to kindergarten readiness.
In North Carolina, only 33% of children are ready for kindergarten when they walk through the door, according to a release announcing the grants. The statistics are worse in underserved communities. Early exposure to books and regular shared reading can improve early literacy skills and academic performance. However, more than 60% of low-income families nationwide report they have no children’s books at home.
These grants will bring books to many of those families, meeting them where they are — hospital birth centers, pediatric and family medicine clinics, and in their homes.
The funding helps to layer these early literacy programs together within Tier 1 counties, the 40 counties the North Carolina Department of Commerce deems most distressed, creating a continuum of support for children and their caregivers. The result: a child could receive a library of at least 85 new books by their fifth birthday. “We believe every child can arrive at kindergarten ready to excel when they have the right tools and support,” Tom Lawrence, president and CEO of The Leon Levine Foundation, said. “We know that quality early childhood experiences are the building blocks of opportunity. By strengthening the bond between parent and child through reading, we are fostering the cognitive and emotional development essential for a lifetime of success and self-sufficiency.”
Breaking Down the Impact
Reach Out and Read North Carolina will receive $5 million over five years to expand a national children’s early relational health program within the state’s most economically distressed counties.
It aims to reach 200,000 children annually in Tier 1 counties by 2030 across 145 pediatric clinics. Primary care providers will encourage shared reading and provide new books, integrating literacy promotion into the standard of care for young children.
Book Harvest, in partnership with the Smart Start Network, will receive $5-plus million over five years for Book Harvest’s Books from Birth program, with a goal of providing books to every family of a newborn at four hospitals serving Tier 1 counties around the state. The participating hospitals will be selected in the coming months.
It expects to reach 16,000 families with newborns at participating hospitals through a dual-enrollment in Books from Birth and Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library, a program administered by the Smart Start Network.
Enrolled families will receive a starter library of 10 books through Books from Birth and receive monthly books by mail until age 5 through Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library.
These grants are part of The Leon Levine Foundation’s Book Abundance strategy, a long-term initiative to promote literacy-rich environments and strengthen kindergarten readiness across the Carolinas by investing in trusted, community-centered programs that reach families early and often.
Assets of the Leon Levine Foundation increased to $2 billion after the April 2023 death of the namesake co-founder, who built the Family Dollar retail chain that was acquired by Dollar Tree for $9.2 billion in 2015.
The expansion means the foundation will be able to pay out grants of $100 million annually, triple the $34.6 million paid in its 2023 fiscal year. It had previously reported total assets of nearly $700 million.
In its five most recent tax filings, the foundation had awarded more than $159 million in grants. In 2025, it awarded $58 million in grants, which is not included in its most recent tax filing.
Levine’s estate includes a provision calling for the foundation to close 50 years after his death, which would be 2073. That is unusual for foundations, which tend to operate in perpetuity. Federal law requires private foundations to donate at least 5% a year for philanthropy.
With $2 billion in assets, the foundation is the second-largest private foundation in North Carolina, and among the 10 largest in the Southeast, the foundation said. The Charlotte-based Foundation For The Carolinas oversees assets of about $3.8 billion, according to its most recent tax filing.