Officeworks has helped raise $650,000 for The Australian Literacy and Numeracy Foundation (ALNF) through the annual Literacy is Freedom Appeal. Not all Australian children have an equal opportunity to develop the essential skills of reading, writing and numeracy and the ALNF helps support students in need, particularly students of refugee background and from Indigenous communities.

Officeworks has been a proud partner of ALNF for the past 10 years. In that time, the funds raised through Officeworks have supported 26,500 children at 250 sites across the country and have meant that more than 350,000 books and 50,000 literacy packs have been sent to budding bookworms.

This year’s appeal encapsulates what it means to build strong literacy skills from your earliest years. It’s a message actor and ALNF ambassador Luke Carroll, a Wiradjuri man and Play School star, is eager to support.

“If you get those basic skills of reading and writing growing up, it can set you in good stead for the rest of your life. It helps you with the educational journey and it opens doors,” he says. “Having those literacy skills early on in their life gives kids the freedom to be whatever they want to be: a doctor, firefighter, an actor; whatever career path they want to choose.”

Officeworks and Mr Carroll are both passionate about closing the literacy gap between Indigenous and non-Indigenous kids. According to the 2019 National Assessment Program for Literacy and Numeracy, only 32.6 per cent of Indigenous Year 5 students in very remote areas are at or above national minimum reading standards, compared to 96 per cent of non-Indigenous students in major cities.