NBA superstar Dwayne Wade offers gift to Marquette learning center

MILWAUKEE (WITI) -- Marquette University alumnus and Miami Heat star Dwyane Wade is giving a gift to the university’s Ralph C. Hartman Literacy and Learning Center to help improve the region’s literacy gap among inner-city children.

Wade attended Marquette University from 2000 to 2003. He made the new gift through his Wade’s World Foundation which provides support to community-based organizations that promote education, health and social skills for children in at-risk situations.

Wade is providing the lead gift to launch the Dwyane Wade “Live to Dream” Summer Reading Program. The program, to be hosted by the Hartman Center, will be open to second- and third-graders from Milwaukee. The Hartman Center is a teaching, research and service site where Marquette University undergraduate teachers in training tutor inner-city Milwaukee school children who struggle with reading and math. Wade will donate $65,000 a year for three years and is challenging others in the Marquette community to match that amount to fund the program for a full six years. The program will begin in 2015 through 2020.

To kick-off the “Live to Dream” Summer Reading Program, a book drive will be held in conjunction with the December 6 Marquette vs. Wisconsin men’s basketball game at the BMO Harris Bradley Center. New and gently used books appropriate for elementary-age children will be collected and provided to the Hartman Center and partnering schools.

Interested donors for the “Live to Dream” Summer Reading Program can do so through an online site, marquette.edu/livetodream, or by contacting Kelley McCaskill, director of development at Kelley.McCaskill@marquette.edu.