Educators refer to the summer months as the “academically vulnerable summer months.” Often times the children experience what is called the summer slide; where the skills they learned during the school year start to diminish. To combat this, schools and public libraries across the state conduct summer reading programs to help the students retain their reading skills.

In Billings the program is called Reading Rocks and last year Reading Rocks held 45 sessions in six city parks and distributed 3,417 books. The children also receive a snack or meal.

The Town Pump Charitable Foundation supports these summer reading programs and programs in Dillon, Big Timber, Havre, Kalispell, Colstrip, Columbia Falls and other communities. The grants to these communities and others supports the mission of the foundation by providing financial support to Montana charitable or governmental organizations with a priority of supporting/meeting basic needs and education for Montana citizens.

Education is the fundamental building block of individual opportunity and economic growth, and STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math) skills, in particular, are critical. The Exxon/Mobil Educational Alliance program invests in the future of our communities through educational grants to neighborhood schools.

Through Town Pump’s more than 45 year partnership with Exxon/Mobil, we help secure grants for Montana schools. These grants support STEM education within the communities we serve allowing students to connect what they learn in the classroom with what they see in the real world.

In 2021, seventy-six (76) Montana schools received $500 grants for a total of $76,000.

Our thanks to Exxon/Mobil for sharing our commitment to giving back to our Montana communities.