(bright music) - Magician Mike Hamilton brings learning to life through "Magic With a Message," a program that empowers children by building confidence, literacy skills, and resilience.

Here to tell us more are Mike Hamilton and Steve Boekholder.

Thank you so much for joining us on this show today.

- Liz.

It's a privilege to be here.

- How did you come up with this program?

- This concept of teaching with magic was something I learned as a young boy that, that amazement I felt as a child.

That wonder of the impossible.

And using magic as a powerful teaching tool, amazement makes us ask why and how, which are important investigative questions for kids.

- And you go to schools all around Utah and are coming up on a pretty big milestone, right?

- We are.

This week alone, we'll hit, well this week finally we'll hit a hundred.

See, you got my one shot.

- [Liz] No, it's okay.

(chuckles) It's over a million, right?

- It's 1.5 million students reached this week over the last 27 years, and we're just so grateful to be in so many schools statewide.

It's anywhere between a hundred and 130 schools just in Utah.

And we do do a lot of international travel as well with students.

- Wow.

And it's incredible that there's community support from different organizations and including yours.

What does it mean to you to be a part of this program?

- Well, at Les Schwab Tire Centers is doing the right thing since 1952, Liz, is one of our large sayings, our founder Les Schwab donned that phrase many, many years ago.

And our stores that operate in all these markets are really excited to be involved with things such as the magic program that Mike has put together for all schools in the state of Utah.

So it works extremely well for the entire state.

Les Schwab is very proud to support this.

We have 35 stores in the state of Utah and we are extremely excited about being a part of the program.

- And another shining part of the program is Snowball who you have here.

This is just a taste of what the kids experience during your message.

What other factors are you sharing with those students?

- So this is a one hour magic show on four very important messages for students, literacy, importance of reading for 20 minutes every day, digital citizenship, to be safe on devices, STEM, where wonder and science collide, where they can ask those investigative questions.

We also talk about the importance of healthy choices, avoiding drugs and alcohol and being kind with our words and actions.

- Well, thank you so much for sharing this information with us today.

If you would like to learn more about the "Magic With a Message Program," the information is on your screen right there.

It's an incredible program and I'm so happy they stopped by "Contact" today.

I'm Liz Adeola.

Thank you so much for watching.

(bright music) Philanthropy, Arts, culture.

It's what brings us together.

Hi, I'm Liz Adeola, the host of Contact, a show that connects you with local events and organizations that serve your community.

If you work for a nonprofit and would like to be on Contact, please visit pbs.org/contact