Helps Education Fund

The mission of the Helps Education Fund is to provide free research-supported materials, services, and professional development to educators and parents with the goal of improving learning outcomes for students. A core value of the Helps Education Fund states that each child—regardless of race, color, age, economic background, presence of a disability, etc.—deserves a free and effective education. Through our proven, research-based programs, we can empower educators to help struggling learners.

Starting in 2005, Dr. John Begeny, former K-12 educator and currently a professor at North Carolina State University, led the development of the original HELPS reading program, designed to assist educators with improving students' reading fluency in a one-on-one setting. This reading program aimed to bridge the gaps between research and practice, community and schools, and education and opportunity. The program also served as a model for what has now become 8 different programs offered by the Helps Education Fund, which was formally founded in May 2011 and has continued to grow exponentially in both its scope and impact. For example, the Helps Education Fund offers Project SPARK (Supporting Parental Activities Reading with Kids) to assist parents with using feasible but evidence-based reading activities in the home for kids from birth to age 12, as well as the Systems Oriented Plan for Academic Achievement (SOPAA) Model, which offers schools an efficient systems-based approach for helping improve educational outcomes for K-8 students who struggle in reading, math, or writing. Within the aforementioned programs and others, the Helps Education Fund has already provided services and materials to more than 20,000 educators in over 40 countries around the world.