Country of Residence
United States
Age
19
Project title
BelieveNBooks
Project Summary: Describe your project in one sentence
A youth-led nonprofit giving every book a second life in the hands of youth in need, BelieveNBooks leads book drives, read aloud programs, and girls empowerment initiatives that have reached 250,000 children across the globe.
Website URL(s) or social media handles.
https://www.believenbooks.org/ and https://www.instagram.com/believenbooks/
Project Category
My project is an existing project that I started
Project Stage
Established (We have regular weekly or monthly impact that we are reliably measuring)
Founding Story: What was the spark that led you to start your project? What was the "Aha!" moment that led you to get started and see the potential for this to succeed?
During the COVID-19 pandemic, reading became a much larger part of my life. In the height of lockdown, my bookshelf brimmed with unread adventures to get lost in even though I could not physically travel. At this same time, I began seeing news coverage about fellow teenagers just ten or twenty miles away who did not even have one book to read. The disconnect was shocking, and I began thinking about how the books sitting on my shelves could benefit other youth in my community. In 2021, I held my first book drive at school, garnering 3,000 gently-used books. The Guadalupe Center, an early childhood learning nonprofit in Immokalee, accepted every book with open arms. Their CEO, Dawn Montecalvo, felt that I was meeting an unfulfilled community need and encouraged me to hold year-round drives. This led me to found BelieveNBooks in 2021, a youth-led nonprofit organization dedicated to enhancing youth horizons through book distribution. Today, I oversee a more than 20 BelieveNBooks distribution sites across the U.S. and Africa and a dedicated student ambassador network. This summer, I was thrilled to return to Guadalupe Center to celebrate our 250,000 book distribution milestone in the same place where everything started.
The Problem: What problem are you helping to solve? Why does it matter to you and your community?
In 2009, in an article for Teachers College Record, Richard Allington and Anne McGill-Franzen presented an article called “Access to Books”. I learned that 61% percent of low-income families have no books at all in their homes for their children. In addition, the most successful way to improve the reading achievement of low-income children is to increase their access to print. One immediate response to the reading achievement gap is to increase book access for as many youth as possible. By helping children gain book access during the critical language development period, we hope to enhance their well-being, academic success, and future achievement. A year after starting BelieveNBooks, I discovered an additional need. With most recipients living in non-English speaking homes, children could not properly use the books being distributed as no one read aloud to them. To bridge this usage gap, I developed the PageTurner initiative: a kit with physical books and access to corresponding YouTube videos of these same books being read aloud by myself and my high school friends. The program includes classics such as Clifford Makes the Team and Pete the Cat. Through this work, 3,000 children started home libraries and regularly engage with books, enabling home learning to ensure Kindergarten readiness. 80% of parents report success and hope to receive more content for their kids.
Your Solution: How are you solving this problem? Share your specific solution.
BelieveNBooks turns books that have finished their life on one shelf into opportunities for children who need them. We collect new and gently used books through community book drives, then work directly with schools, early learning programs, nonprofits, and community organizations to place books where access is limited. As we grew, I realized that simply donating more books was not enough. We needed different solutions for different barriers to literacy. That led us to build several complementary programs. Through community Book Drives, we redistribute thousands of books that might otherwise sit unused. PageTurner provides young children with curated take-home book kits, paired with digital read-alouds that help families engage with the books together. My Very Own Book works through Early Learning Coalitions to provide books directly to young preschool children, allowing us to reach entire populations rather than individual classrooms. Series Squad provides sets of the same titles when partner organizations need books for group programming. Tales of African Women Trailblazers equips African youth with relatable role models to bolster their professional exposure and mitigate opportunity gaps early on. Our model is partnership-driven: rather than creating parallel infrastructure, we work through organizations that already know and serve their communities. This allows us to operate efficiently, respond to specific community needs, and expand productively into new regions. What began when I was 14 as one local book drive has evolved into an interconnected literacy model spanning communities across the United States and Africa. Our goal is not simply to distribute books. It is to build systems that make book ownership a consistent part of childhood.
Impact: How has your project created impact / made a difference so far? Or, if at an early stage, what will impact look like?
BelieveNBooks began when I was 14. Looking at the books filling my own shelves, I realized that many had already served their purpose for me but could still open a door for fellow youth in my home state of Florida. I expected the cause to start and end with one book drive, and boy was I wrong. Instead, that first drive grew into a movement that has now distributed more than 250,000 books to approximately 50,000 children through 150+ partner organizations. We have expanded across 10 U.S. states and, through nonprofit partners, helped books reach children in seven African countries. Our PageTurner program alone has distributed more than 30,000 books, and our new My Very Own Book pilot initiative is designed to bring one book to 6,500 Early Learning Coalition preschool students across eight Florida counties. Through the reuse and cost-free donation book drive model, we have offset 600,000 kilograms of carbon dioxide. We have also mobilized students, families, schools, businesses, and community organizations to collect, sort, transport, fund, and distribute books. More than $150,000 in funding (corporate, private, and individual) support has helped us build the infrastructure behind this growth.
Your Innovation: What is different about your project compared to other programs or solutions already out there? How is your project new or innovative?
Book donation is not a novel concept, but using drives as a foundational model and scalable system is. Many book drives operate as one-time transactions: collect books, identify a recipient, and donate them. We began that way too. But as BelieveNBooks grew, I realized the value of hosting annual drives with trusted partners to provide ongoing literacy access. The communities experiencing the greatest gaps in book access need reliable distribution systems, not one time support. Our innovation is combining reuse, targeted program design, and existing community infrastructure. Instead of building new distribution networks from scratch, we partner with organizations already entrenched in children's lives, from schools and literacy nonprofits to Florida's Early Learning Coalitions. This allows us to move from serving one classroom or center at a time toward reaching entire groups of children across counties. We also design different models around different needs. PageTurner combines physical books with read-aloud resources to encourage home read aloud engagement. My Very Own Book is structured around direct book ownership for young children in advance of public school entry. Series Squad supplies matching titles for organizations running group programming. Community book drives simultaneously create a sustainable supply of books and give other young people an accessible way to become change makers themselves through replicable book drives in their own communities. We are transforming a simple act of giving into an infrastructure for equitable book access that can be replicated in new communities.
How many people are on your team?
20
Your team: What role(s) do your team members play? How do you share leadership with them?
About 20 people make up our team at any given time, including youth volunteers, our Board of Trustees, and mentors from the Guadalupe Center. Our youth ambassadors across CA, PA, NY, LA, and TX lead independent book drives and donations, while Florida Gulf Coast University volunteers collect, sort, package, and deliver books from storage locker to nonprofits in need. Everyone has different strengths and ideas, and shared efforts have allowed BelieveNBooks to grow wider than a solo effort would.
What’s Next: What are the next steps you plan to take to grow or strengthen your project over the next year? If your project is still in the idea stage, describe the steps you will take over the next three months to launch or begin developing it.
When I started BelieveNBooks at 14, my goal was one book drive. I never imagined that the books on my shelf would lead me to communities across the United States and Africa. Over the next year, I want to make that impact increasingly sustainable and replicable. In Florida, we are expanding our early literacy programs through Early Learning Coalitions, using existing community networks to bring PageTurner and My Very Own Book to over 6,500 more preschool children in need while strengthening how we measure their impact. I also want BelieveNBooks to keep growing beyond me. Anyone, anywhere can host a book drive, and I am expanding our network of young leaders who can independently collect and distribute books in their communities. Since leaving Florida for college, I have begun passing local responsibilities to high school students and teachers, expanding our work in Philadelphia, and recruiting ambassadors across the U.S. to lead their own drives. Internationally, we will continue building partnerships that bring copies of my female empowerment book to African youth. I am also writing a parallel book highlighting Latinx women, expanding our mission of using literacy and role models to inspire young people long after my direct involvement.
How do you encourage other people to join your project or learn about the problem you’re working on? If you have a new idea, tell us how you will do this in the future.
I started BelieveNBooks at 14, and one of the most important things I have learned is that social responsibility is contagious when shared. I try to make it easy for other young people to realize they can create change too. I advertise this in every article or podcast appearance. Through our global network and 2026 open call for leaders, students can independently host book drives in their own communities. They are involved at every step: from collecting and sorting books to packaging and delivering them. I have also worked closely with university students who became the backbone of our operations in Florida. What started as volunteering grew into genuine ownership. Many students hosting their own drives and consistently leading organization sessions, which ultimately enables growth. I also use social media to connect with and mentor young people interested in service and nonprofit work. Tiktok conversations have turned into literacy work, including a student who began book drives in Rye, New York after we talked about college application strategies. Other philanthropists and community leaders encouraged me five years ago, and I want to pay that forward. Because of my mentor network, I know that people of any age can bring people together and make a difference. I hope that BelieveNBooks, too, becomes a place to turn ideas into action, no matter how big or small.
