‘Reading Rainbow’ Breaks Kickstarter Records, Brings In Over $5 Million

LaVar Burton’s Kickstarter campaign to bring back ‘Reading Rainbow’ ended today as the most widely backed campaign in the crowdfunding site’s five year history.

As of 3p.m. EST Wednesday, the Kickstarter campaign had 105,000 backers.The previous record held was The Veronica Mars Movie, with 91,585 people donating to that campaign.

According to CNet.com, ‘Reading Rainbow’ was Kickstarter’s fifth most successful campaign ever. Over $5.4 million was raised, which is five times the original goal of $1 million.

Backers of the campaign received special prizes based on how much money they donated, from incentives for classrooms, ‘Reading Rainbow’ fans and even a private dinner with Burton, or a picture with Burton while the backer wears his iconic Geordi La Forge visor, a throwback to Burton’s role on ‘Star Trek: The Next Generation’.

Last week, ‘Family Guy’ creator Seth McFarlane pledged to match $1 million in donations to the campaign, in hopes of generating more last minute donations.

‘Reading Rainbow’ was a popular children’s PBS series that championed reading and ran from 1983 to 2006. Levar Burton hosted the show for it’s entire run. When the show ended, the actor bought the name and rights to the show.

In 2012, Burton launched a free ‘Reading Rainbow’ mobile app for tablet computers but realized that it was not reaching the children who needed it most. The funds raised during this campaign will allow that app to be updated.

“To reach kids everywhere, we need to be everywhere,”

Burton wrote on the Kickstarter page.

In order to reach a wider audience of children, the campaign called for the app to be available on the internet as well. As the ‘Reading Rainbow’ campaign raised money, it promised integrations on more screens: game consoles such as XBox and PlayStation, set-top boxes and streaming devices like Roku, and mobile devices running Apple’s iOS and Google’s Android operating systems.

U.S.A. Today reports that the ‘Reading Rainbow’ program will also be available in over 7,500 classrooms. The online version will provide materials for teachers and make it available for free to classrooms in need in the United States and Canada.

In a statement on the Kickstarter page, Burton explained why he feels compelled to bring the show to children around the world,

“We have a responsibility to prepare our children … and right now, the numbers show that we, as a society, are failing in that responsibility.”

The ‘Reading Rainbow’ Kickstarter campaign went viral in May, and reached its original goal in less than 24 hours.