“The ability to read well is more basic, more essential, more foundational, or important to a child’s success in life than anything else,” the couple claims.

The Curry couple, Stephen and Ayesha, are sharing the joy of the season through books as presents.

Together, they co-founded the Eat. Learn. Play. Foundation, which has provided Oakland, California classrooms with thousands of books.

The value of early childhood education, particularly in relation to reading, is something that Stephen and Ayesha, along with the rest of the Eat. Learn. Play. team, acknowledge, as they tell PEOPLE in an exclusive statement.

As part of a Bay Area programme, Ayesha Curry and Steph Curry of Salesforce will work to end hunger and reduce food waste.

There is no more important component than a child’s reading proficiency in deciding how successful they will be as adults. It will take a lot of work, but we are confident that we can improve these kids’ lives with the support of groups like Literati.

The value of early childhood education, particularly in relation to reading, is something that Stephen and Ayesha, along with the rest of the Eat. Learn. Play. team, acknowledge, as they tell PEOPLE in an exclusive statement.

As part of a Bay Area programme, Ayesha Curry and Steph Curry of Salesforce will work to end hunger and reduce food waste.

Stephen has generously donated six books to the “Underrated” book club. Five of the books are for children, and one is for adults.

Oakland Unified Schools will receive 14,000 boxes of books from the Eat. Learn. Play. Foundation and Literati before Christmas. These boxes will be distributed to students who are learning remotely due to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. This is in addition to the 1,000 boxes that were given away at the recent Christmas with the Currys event.

The remaining amount of the donation will be distributed to community organisations in the coming year. Aydin Senkut of Felicis Ventures, an investor from the Bay Area, helped make it feasible.

At home, Stephen and Ayesha have been keeping themselves occupied with their three children: Riley, who is eight years old, and Ryan Carson, who is five years old. Canon W. Jack, their son, is two years old.

Stephen and Ayesha are currently “in the thick of it” as they try to figure out how to educate their two children. Ayesha told PEOPLE in September that their eldest child “officially started school” last autumn.

“My oldest is pretty disciplined, so that’s been easy,” the Family Food Fight host remarked, “but our 5-year-old has a little trouble staying engaged for an extended period of time.”

They found that Ryan benefits from “doing some kind of physical activity right before class starts to focus the mind and get some of the wiggles out, and periodic ‘dance breaks’ between lessons,” according to Ayesha and Stephen.

“We also attached resistance workout bands to her chair legs, so she has something to occupy herself with in the event that she becomes restless during an extended Zoom session,” the author of The Full Plate revealed.

Ayesha is very appreciative of Stephen’s help in easing their children into online schooling.

Fortunately, Stephen has been really supportive of my efforts to educate my children. Since she gave birth to the children, she joked on September’s episode of The Kelly Clarkson Show that she had no problem with her husband being in charge of their education.

According to the mother, Stephen is “making up for lost time, to be quite frank” with their daughters.

When they were babies, he slept through every nappy change and late night, so now he’s good at sleeping through everything’, she said.