CHARLESTON, W.Va., – Appalachian Power employees and retirees will celebrate Read to Me Day on Thursday by sharing a book with students at nearly 445 elementary schools in Tennessee, Virginia and West Virginia.

About 320 volunteer readers will fan out across the company’s three-state service territory to read aloud at nearly 445 elementary schools. Employees and retirees will read “When Charlie McButton Lost Power” by Suzanne Collins, author of the Hunger Games series. Readers will visit two or more classrooms at each school, and then donate the book to the school’s library.

The company began its Read to Me Day program in West Virginia in 2001, and expanded to Virginia and Tennessee two years ago. Since that first day in 2001, Appalachian Power has donated nearly 5,000 books to school libraries and read aloud to nearly 200,000 students.

“Our Read to Me Day school partnership is a great way for our employees to be involved in communities where they live and work,” said Allison Barker, Read to Me Day coordinator. “It’s also an opportunity for us to emphasize the important role that reading plays in education and careers.”

Appalachian Power has 1 million customers in Tennessee, Virginia and West Virginia (as AEP Appalachian Power). It is a unit of American Electric Power, one of the largest electric utilities in the United States, which delivers electricity to more than 5 million customers in 11 states. AEP ranks among the nation’s largest generators of electricity, owning nearly 38,000 megawatts of generating capacity in the U.S. AEP also owns the nation’s largest electricity transmission system, a nearly 39,000-mile network that includes more 765 kilovolt extra-high voltage transmission lines than all other U.S. transmission systems combined.