City National Bank and Barnes & Noble Donate $28,000 Worth of New Books and Cash to Elementary Schools in Nashville
 City National Bank colleagues and its literacy mascot “Blue” joined with representatives from Barnes & Noble in presenting more than 1,400 new books and $7,000 in cash to staff and students at Tusculum Elementary School in Nashville.
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NASHVILLE, TN – City National Bank’s Reading is The way up® nonprofit literacy program, in partnership with Barnes & Noble, recently donated 2,800 new books and cash totaling more than $14,000 to elementary schools in Nashville in an effort to promote literacy and support the local community. The books and cash donations were presented to Tusculum Elementary and Warner Enhanced Option Elementary in school assemblies where the principals and librarians of each school accepted these generous donations.
(For an image related to this story, go to https://cnb.com/PublishingImages/nashville-tusculum.jpg.)
The book donations were the result of a Holiday Book Drive at Barnes & Noble, the world’s largest book seller, in partnership with Reading is The way up at City National. Customers at the Barnes & Noble store at 1701 Mallory Lane in Nashville donated 2,800 new books and City National matched this donation with $14,000 for the additional 2,800 new books to be purchased through Barnes & Noble by the school librarians. Each school received 1,400 books and $7,000.
“Barnes & Noble is a great community partner that City National enjoys teaming up with during the holidays to help Nashville schools and children have greater access to books,” said Holly Bell, senior vice president and team manager for City National Bank. “Literacy is one of the best gifts you can give a child, and through City National’s literacy program we have now donated more than 115,000 new books to school libraries in Nashville, California, New York and Nevada since the inception of this program in 2002.”
The City National and Barnes & Noble Holiday Book Drive ran from December 1 through January 1 and included 15 stores in Nashville, California, New York and Nevada. A total of 15,800 books were donated nationwide by Barnes & Noble customers and City National Bank donated more than $50,000 worth of books, totaling over 31,600 new books in four states.
“We are very excited and appreciative of this generous donation from City National Bank and Barnes & Noble,” said Courtney Haley, librarian of Tusculum Elementary School. “This is a great example of a community partnership that’s helping schools and children. We applaud City National and Barnes & Noble for taking a lead role in this wonderful community endeavor.”
The principals and librarians of Tusculum and Warner Enhanced Option Elementary Schools took part in school assemblies where Carolyn Rodriguez, vice president and RITWU program administrator, and Holly Bell from City National, and Robbie Bryan, community relations manager, from Barnes & Noble presented each school with their donations. City National’s literacy mascot, “Blue”, was also on hand to help with these presentations.
About City National
City National Bank is the wholly owned subsidiary of City National Corporation (NYSE: CYN). It is backed by $23.7 billion in total assets, and provides banking, investment and trust services through 79 offices, including 16 full-service regional centers, in Southern California, the San Francisco Bay Area, Nevada, New York City, Nashville, Tenn., and Atlanta. The company and its investment affiliates manage or administer $54.5 billion in client investment assets, including more than $31 billion under direct management.
City National has nine branch offices in Nevada, including five in Las Vegas and one each in North Las Vegas, Reno, Carson City and Minden. The bank also has a loan production office at Stateline in South Lake Tahoe.
For more information about City National, visit the company’s Website at cnb.com.
About Reading is the Way Up®
Seeking to better the education of our future leaders, City National in April 2002 launched a multi-faceted initiative to restock the state's school library system. Since then, the award-winning program has:
- Donated more than 115,000 books to Nashville, California, New York and Nevada school libraries.
- Awarded close to $500,000 to teachers at elementary, middle and high schools for creative literacy projects.
- Awarded $10,000 to the Children’s Defense Fund-California Urban Lights Freedom Schools program in support of after school enrichment curriculum.
- Received the 2005 President’s Volunteer Service Award, the 2005 Corporate Philanthropy Award from the Los Angeles Public Library, the 2006 Corporate Award from the Getty House Foundation, the Hugh O’Brien Youth Leadership Corporate Citizen Award, and honored as the 2007 Corporate Visionary Partner by the Wonder of Reading.
The Reading is the Way Up Fund is a 501(c)(3) administered by the California Community Foundation. For more information, visit www.readingisthewayup.org.