Nonprofit donates books to young fire victims
BEN LOMOND >> Teen Reader Society, a new nonprofit organization in Santa Monica that aims to revitalize the number of young readers in America, has teamed up with Penguin Random House, the largest publishing company in the U.S., to distribute books to children who were affected by wildfires along the West Coast.
“When the fires happened in August and we realized how bad they were, we quickly decided to redirect our book donation program,” said Teen Reader Society Co-Founder Judit Langh. “It was one thing to get books to kids that don’t have books but it’s a different thing to give books to those who lost everything.”
Teen Reader Society and Penguin Random House plan to provide roughly 5,000 books to underserved children. The operation is set to be implemented in two phases. The first phase will see around 2,400 books donated to 800 children afflicted by the wildfires.
The idea to redirect the donations to children that were affected by the wildfires came as Michael Norris, the other co-founder of Teen Reader Society and a Santa Cruz local, was returning to Santa Cruz from visiting family in Southern Oregon.
“When I was driving back on ( Interstate- 5), I saw the devastation on a whole different scale in Oregon than it was in California,” Norris said.
The devastation felt in Southern Oregon from the Alameda Drive fires surpassed Santa Cruz County. Some 700 students in the Phoenix-Talent School District in Phoenix, Oregon lost their homes in the fires.
Comparatively, 125 students in San Lorenzo Valley Unified School District were displaced by the CZU Lightning Complex fire, which is one of the worst disasters Santa Cruz County has faced in more than three decades.
On top of that, PhoenixTalent primarily serves underprivileged children and those who aren’t primarily English speakers, according to Norris. It is also an impoverished community that is considered rent-burdened.
“It’s a community we really want to support. We feel as though the books could really benefit that community in a meaningful way,” Norris said. “There was absolutely a personal connection to it. Seeing first-hand driving back to Santa Cruz after seeing what happened here.”
The devastation led Teen Reader Society and Penguin Random House to focus on two afflicted areas. The duo targeted both school districts and will be hand-picking brand new books they believe the students in those areas will enjoy.
“Having books around is something tangible, something that a student can hold on to,” Director of Human Resources at San Lorenzo Valley Unified, Andrew Lucia said in a video from Teen Reader Society. “For someone who’s lost everything, holding on to something is really important.”
The remaining 2,600 books will be donated during phase two. However, Teen Reader Society has not made a plan of how or where to donate the remaining books.
“We’re going to be looking at other communities to support,” Norris said. “This is an ongoing effort that we’re going to be providing.”