Aaron & Liv's Reading Challenge

#ALLRISE to Read

We are excited to collaborate with TheLivBits and share the love of reading. 

(Linden, CA – May 4, 2020) – The Aaron Judge ALL RISE Foundation is excited to team up with youth voice advocate Olivia Van Ledtje (@TheLivBits) to support reading & literacy. This challenge will kick off in May and run through the summer as we share lists of our favorite books, host book discussions, and celebrate our love of reading together. 

The focus of this project comes from Aaron’s love of reading that he developed while growing up. Academics played just as important a role in his development as did his love of sports. Being able to read, learn, and grow are central to Aaron. The Foundation agrees and strives to encourage the development and love of reading as essential to young people improving their skills on and off the field. 

Joining Aaron and the ALL RISE foundation on this adventure is Olivia. Olivia is a huge advocate of reading and writing for a while now, and is often referred to as a “book activist.” A quick tour of her social feed and you will find photos with authors, visiting her favorite books stores, and hosting talks with students and educators across the country. She also has her own podcast in the Pinna Audio app, called The KidLit Show where she interviews authors and illustrators about their craft. When asked about the campaign, Aaron said, "Reading was so important to me growing up, I'm excited to partner with TheLivBits to launch this initiative.” Olivia is equally excited adding: “I can’t wait for this collaboration with Aaron! Books and baseball are the perfect way to bring on summer!”

Joining Olivia is her mom, Cynthia, a long time educator, trainer, and author. In September of 2019, Olivia and Cynthia co-authored a book titled Spark Change: Making Your Mark in a Digital World. The book is about empowering youth to find their voice by centering on three ideas of citizenship, “be a good person, be critical and be an advocate for something you care about in life.” 

The campaign will run on social media on both TheLivBits and ALLRISEofficial. All updates, announcements, book discussions and more will be announced here as well. We are also working on some surprises for our participants, so stay tuned. 

#Nurses Appreciation Day

Aaron joined with MLB players across the country in honoring National Nurses day by putting Stephanie Pantelidis' name on his jersey.  Thank you to all our front- line workers. We are grateful.

ALL RISE Foundation Launches Website

The Aaron Judge ALL RISE Foundation has been working for the past year to promote programs, resources and connect with youth across the country. In order for our foundation to be as transparent as possible and to share the work we are doing, we are excited to announce the creation and launch of our website, aaronjudgeallrisefoundation.org.

“ALL RISE will inspire children and youth to become
responsible citizens by engaging them in activities that
encourage them to reach unlimited possibilities.”

— ALL RISE Foundation

Our goal is to support young people and the individuals who work with young people through our website and our programs. Most of our work has been local, focusing on Linden, Aaron’s hometown. We have engaged in a few national campaigns with #ICANHELP supporting citizenship online. We are looking to expand these programs to cities like Fresno - where Aaron went to college - and New York City, home of the Yankees.

As part of this growth, keep checking in as we share what these programs will be and when they are happening. In addition, we have established an application process to receive mini-grants for projects in schools and communities. All of this will be on our website.

Last, for those of you who work with youth, we will be sharing some free lessons and resources covering a wide range of topics for young people.

We are excited to share this resource with you and look forward to serving our communities.

Aaron Judge #UncapThePossibilities

In April 2018, Aaron Judge joined Sharpie Pens and the Players Tribune in supporting #ICANHELP, a nonprofit dedicated to supporting students on how to respond to negative online content and build positive social media campaigns.

#ICANHELP has trained more than 450,000 students in 15 states and two countries. This was a natural fit for Aaron who believes strongly in supporting youth and youth leadership development. “The #ICANHELP foundation is really about deleting negativity on soical media. Not just deleting negativity, but empowering young people and educators with a system and a plan to stop negativity when they see it and produce a positive outcome,” says ALL RISE foundation founder Aaron Judge.

No stranger to negativity, Aaron’s start in Major League Baseball was frequented with questions about his heigh, size, swing performance from the first day he was drafted. Aaron turned those negative comments into positive action finding motivation in those who seemed more interested in tearing down than building up.

“Create your own lines, in this world you are told so many times this is how it’s done, or this is how it should be. Break those lines, break those chains, break out of those line you are given and find the positivity.”

This is also a personal cause for Aaron. “My cousins are 8 and 11, they are about to get into this social media world, I want to make a positive impact for them.” Aaron adds, “I don’t want to be defined as only a baseball player. There’s a lot of things off the baseball field that also define who I am. I want to show people that I did help.”

Aaron also penned a personal essay for the campaign, adding “I want to leave an impact on this world that’s greater than just what I do on the baseball field. I’m blessed to have the best parents in the world, and I think the best way that I can repay them is by taking the lessons they taught me — the things that made me the man I am today — and pass them on.”

You can learn more about #ICANHELP at www.icanhelpdeletenegativity.org.