Live, Learn and Play Centers – The Pistons have renovated an NBA league-high 12 Live, Learn and Play Centers in metro Detroit since 2001 – including six since March 2006. These projects a provide state-of-the-art resource center including new carpet, paint, wood flooring, furniture, computers, printers, leapfrogs, books and magazine subscriptions to areas with previously inadequate resources.

Outreach – More than 15,000 children have personally participated in Read to Achieve events since the program’s inception in 2001.

Taking Action Steps – The Detroit Pistons and Read to Achieve partners collected more than 30,000 books during the month of March 2006 with the help of media partner FOX-2. This pushed the overall number of books collected through the March is Reading Month Book Drive above 125,000. The books collected will be donated to future Pistons Learn and Play Centers as well as local libraries and youth centers in need of proper educational tools.

Targeting Real Problems – Pistons players directly visited more than 10,000 metro Detroit students via Read to Achieve this season – and more than 125,000 since 2001 – raising real issues and targeting problems such as attendance, citizenship and academics through the second annual Rasheed A. Wallace Student Turnaround Program at Kettering High School, the Flip Saunders and Chauncey Billups Back in School, Back to Work Reading Rally and Rip Hamilton’s Strong Bodies, Strong Minds initiative.