Fundraiser for Little Hands Book Bank (2018)

Caragh is an avid reader and loves to be read to. Not all children have that luxury. 

In the United States, 61% of low-income families there are limited to no books for children in the home. Consequently, 1 in 6 children who do not read at age level by third grade do not graduate from high school. Access to age-appropriate reading materials to young children is vital for helping develop young minds and help keep them on par with their peers. 

One of Caragh’s parents had a colleague that helps her child with a youth-run philanthropy of their own. Little Hands Book Bank collects donations of books, which are cleaned and sorted into starter libraries, which are given to low-income children through local partner organizations that emphasize education, reading-readiness and family literacy.

Caragh wanted to help Jamison Hand in his efforts to support other kids getting books, so she went to work on a new batch of drawings, working on a new one almost every morning. 

A local business had seen her story in the newspaper and reached out to offer up their toy store, Sock Monkey Junction, as a place for her to host her next fundraiser. She took advantage of that opportunity and put on her very first art show in Mansfield, Texas. 

 

Several neat things happened that evening. One, the family got to meet Rose Nguyen, a supporter who had discovered Caragh’s efforts online. Being that most of the fundraisers had previously been online, this was our first opportunity to connect with Rose, who has since become a family friend and is one of Caragh's most generous supporters over the years. 

She had been in New York a few months prior and came across a coin featuring the Mother Teresa on one side and on the other read, “Not all of us can do great things. But we can do small things with Great Love”. She said it reminded her of Caragh’s servant heart, so she got it incase they ever had the opportunity to cross paths. We're glad they did.

Another interesting thing that happened was that this was her first story covered by Tim Ciesco and NBC 5. We didn't know it at the time, however this evolved into an ongoing relationship that resulting in much bigger things. 

Following the fundraiser, she and Jamison took the money raised and purchased several carts full of books from the Half-Priced Books corporate store. The NBC 5 team joined to get more B-roll of the two kids working together to help others. 

When they went to check out, they were met with a surprise! The Half-Price Books leadership team heard about what they were doing and gave them a 20% discount so that their money could go even further.