BELLAIRE • MEMORIAL • RIVER OAKS • TANGLEWOOD • WEST UNIVERSITY

Donating books – thousands of them

By Kate Carmain, age 17 | July 1, 2018

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ROSEBUD READS Kate Carmain, an incoming senior at The Kinkaid School, founded a nonprofit children’s literacy program called Rosebud Reads. (Photo: Bluedot Studios)

I love to read and have turned my passion into an avenue to help others. Every summer I volunteer on the Rosebud Sioux Native American Reservation where I am a tribal member. I saw that the reservation lacked children’s books, which sparked my interest in children’s literacy on the reservation and in Texas. My research revealed that children in middle-income families own approximately 13 books per child while those in low-income homes own about 1 book per 300 children, and 61 percent of children living in low-income families do not have books in their homes. I wanted to give books to kids who might otherwise not have them. After donating all my childhood books, I wanted to do more.

In 2014, I founded Rosebud Reads, a nonprofit children’s literacy program that solicits the donation of books for re-donation and holds book clubs for children living in low-income homes. To date, I have donated over 7,000 books to underprivileged children living on the Rosebud Sioux Reservation, in Houston and in West Texas. In the aftermath of Hurricane Harvey, I donated over 1,000 books to evacuated children who were living in shelters at Memorial Drive Presbyterian Church and NRG Stadium.

This year, I spearheaded a book fair at Landrum Middle School in SBISD. I met with the Landrum MS librarian to determine his students’ need for books and contacted English teachers at The Kinkaid School, where I attend, to recruit students to design literacy-based activities for the LMS students. The book fair took place in April and was attended by over 500 LMS students and numerous Kinkaid students who worked with them to make reading fun. We read books, made journals and read instructions to make slime. We donated over 700 books for the LMS students to take home!

If you have any gently used, age-appropriate books that you are no longer using, please consider donating them to Rosebud Reads (www.rosebudreads.org)! I love inspiring kids to read by giving them books to start their very own home libraries.

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