A Book Angel- Michelle Builds a Library

I'm cross posting this today with Vania from Reverie Book Reviews. She's the one that did all the work, so she deserves all the credit. I'm just helping her get the word out. But regardless, this is a great cause that needs some attention!

Recently Kami Garcia had a post about a community in Virginia that was building a library. Their first and ONLY! Michelle the generous and amazing lady behind this library has been funding this library out of her own pocket. So in light of the holidays, we thought we should ask her to share her story and with a little surprise coming tomorrow for her and you, guys!

If this doesn’t tug at your heart string, I don’t know what will!

Michelle says:

Drugs, domestic violence, alcohol abuse, those are some of the everyday problems of the children who live in my community. My community is a public housing complex that has almost 200 units and almost every single unit has at least two or more children. Out of the amount of children that live in this community over half have suffered the problems I mentioned before.

How do you help? How do you make a difference? Is there any hope? I say yes. After researching ways to help in the community and being a book enthusiast my entire life, I found a way to help. I found out that 80% of the children living in my community had never visited a public library except when they visited when on a field trip with their school. Out of that 80%, only 15% of those children owned any books themselves. I found the need I could help with the most. There is no public library within walking distance of the complex for the children to go to by themselves.

On the property of the complex is a small cafeteria like community center. We have started an amateur library onsite to assist the children in the area.

The children are between the ages of 1 yr and 18 years. The kids in this community were at times involved in gang activity, some were fighting right in the streets of this community, and some were suffering daily at the hands of their parents (and still do). But with the hope of helping in some small way we started this library. At first the kids were skeptical and nervous. After time passed they became used to us and the fact that all we wanted to do was provide a way for them to discover the love of literature. Some kids weren’t very good readers, some were embarrassed to even like reading. A few children couldn’t keep books in their homes because of the circumstances that they lived in. There are four volunteers that started with the program as enrollees. Now the four volunteers assist the other children with their homework as well as help with activities we provide for the children. The children in this community have a growing hunger, and that hunger is for books and stories and reading! We want to provide that as much as possible!