Magazine Literacy Bee

As shown in the 5 steps to KinderHarvest success, it's best to have your community"infrastructure" in place before collecting magazines - so, basically, the volunteers who will pick-up, sort, label, and deliver the magazines, and the list of organizations that would like to receive them. Running a local magazine collection can be a massive undertaking, but will go very smoothly if you know where you will be bringing the magazine you collect and have lots of help. Be on the lookout for great team leads.

The organizations should give an indication of the population served and the categories of magazines they would or would not be interested in. We are working on a web application for volunteers and organizations to sign-up and note their interests, but for now, it's being handled offline, so please keep track of the details. As you can imagine, people love to donate their magazines and the collections will grow very large, very quickly. So, its very important to identify as many agencies helping as many people as possible to keep the magazines flowing into the hands of new readers.

Also, it's important to count each magazine donated and delivered (title and issue), to measure of our overall impact and for our regulatory and financial reporting.

Once you are ready to set up collections, the possibilities are endless. Places that people frequent, such as coffee shops and grocery stores, schools, libraries, and churches are ideal locations. Schools and churches can also provide a ready volunteer force. Many churches are already involved in regular food collections for food pantries and will have relationships already with many community support agencies. Our magazine collections are very similar. Schools engage children and families and are a very good source for children's magazines, which are always in short supply. Consider helping us to the Whole Foods and Starbucks locations in your community. We have had great luck in these locations. For example, you could organize that Starbucks "summer reading" promotion in June, but again, you'll want to have our volunteers and literacy organizations set up first to distribute receive the magazines. You can also collect a steady stream of magazines from doctors, dentists, hair salons, and restaurants that receive new magazines each month and are happy to provide them, but want to have regular pick-ups.

When you are ready to get started, I'd like to add you as an blogger there, so you can chronicle the steps you are taking. This will help others to follow in your footsteps in their own communities.

Remember, you are changing the world, one magazine at a time!