Actor LeVar Burton has exceeded even his own expectations after raising more than $3 million to fund his Reading Rainbow business venture through a Kickstarter crowd-funding campaign, according to the New York Post.

The actor hosted Reading Rainbow, a popular children’s program that promoted reading on PBS, from 1983 until it was canceled in 2006.

Burton and his business partner Mark Wolfe later acquired the rights to the Reading Rainbow brand and started their own media company in 2011.

Together they launched an interactive reading app for tablets — now the top-selling educational app for such devices.

Burton and Wolfe started the Kickstarter campaign Wednesday to fund the company’s next phase of growth. Proceeds from the campaign will go to developing interactive reading websites for homes and schools — including vouchers for  in-need schools to use the website for free.

The online campaign surpassed the $1 million mark in just 11 hours, to the surprise of Wolfe. “The numbers were going up and we kept hitting refresh, saying: This can’t be right,” remarked Wolfe.

In addition to free access to Reading Rainbow products, the company plans to use the money to hire more staff. The employees currently number 20.

By Thursday night, the campaign reached $2 million, by Friday night, more than $3 million. Burton and Wolfe have set a new campaign goal of $5 million. The extra money will benefit five times as many schools as previously noted, as well as create apps across multiple platforms — not just a website.

At the time of publication, more than 68,000 people have contributed money to the campaign.

The campaign ends June 30.