Happy Tears: LeVar Burton breaks down over ‘Reading Rainbow’ Kickstarter success

The time has come, friends, to have a good healthy cry at your desk.

Seconds after reaching his $1 million goal on Kickstarter for a new web-only version of “Reading Rainbow,” host LeVar Burton broke down in tears – and luckily for the inner child in all of us, he did it on video so we could get choked up right along with him.

“I am overwhelmed, thank you so much, this is going to enable us to really really really do a lot of good,” said Burton with tears in his eyes. “I am so proud that this community has come together to support this effort and it's a people's thing, it's the $5, it's the $10, it's the $25, its the $1 pledges, it's unbelievable, or actually it's actually very believable, thank you so much, we are literally changing the world one children's book at a time. God bless.”

The “Reading Rainbow” Kickstarter campaign went up yesterday and reached its $1 million goal in less than 12 hours. The total amount raised now stands at over $1.9 million from over 43,000 donors. Much of the money will go to providing a rebooted version of “Reading Rainbow” and related instructional materials for free to disadvantaged schools.

Watch the heartfelt video below.

Did you donate to the “Reading Rainbow” campaign? Let us know in the comments.