When Vic Jose and Rick Ahaus learned that more than 40 percent of children in Wayne County were NOT prepared to learn when they started school, they tackled that issue with great intensity and created the K-Ready program.

K-Ready’s goal is to increase the number of Wayne County children who enter school prepared to learn.

In 2007, concerned citizens led by Rick Ahaus and Vic Jose formed an independent, voluntary, community-based program with a single focus: to have all third-grade students in Richmond reading on grade level by the time they enter the fourth grade. They created a 501 (c) 3 organization to fund the first The Reading Academy.

The Reading Academy’s goal is to ensure that every Third Grader in Richmond knows how to read at grade level by the end of third grade.