Led By: Emily Wang, Kevin Chen & Jonathan Liu
Written By: Jason Jiang, Kevin Chen
On March 25th, 2017, AYLUS’s Houston, Pearland, and Sugarland Branches met to help Books Between Kids, a nonprofit organization dedicated to spreading literacy and books to lower-income families in the greater Houston area. To participate in the 2017 national book drive, the three branches worked together sorting and packaging books to help BBK reach their goal of spreading books to all of the underprivileged students in the city.
When we arrived at the warehouse, we were met with the program coordinator, Trent Hale, who told us all about their program and what we would be doing to help. Each year, Books Between Kids hosts books distribution fairs at various elementary schools in the area. Each student can choose 6 books that they get to take home and keep. Last year, BBK served 59 schools and over 36,000 students with over 260,000 books distributed. Considering there were over 300,000 books in the warehouse when we were there, they are projecting to be able to distribute books to over 40,000 students this year.
What made this event so special was that all three Houston area branches were able to come together and work as a team. Not often are AYLUS branches able to collaborate together on a project, so this event’s success displayed our abilities to organize and lead. Additionally, we met several of the economically disadvantaged students indirectly through a video that BBK showed us. It was heart-warming to see children fascinated by the books that we once cherished.
The volunteers across the branches included, from the Houston Branch: Justin Li, Dennis Liu, Jonathan Liu, and Jerry Wan; from the Pearland Branch: Kevin Chen, Fred Guo, Terry Guo, Jason Jiang, Grace Liu, Adith Ram, and Jenny Yu; from the Sugarland Branch: Emily and Lauren Wang. A few of the parents helped sort as well. Thanks to everyone who participated and made this event possible!
