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1/15/2010

Celebrating Children’s Illustrator Aja Wells

Filed under: General — John Mennell @ 10:17 am

We are celebrating Aja Wells - a fabulously talented children’s illustrator who is helping to bring MagazineLiteracy.org to life. Aja’s work is so fresh and colorful. We are very excited about this collaboration and the wonderful possibilities. Stay tuned.

9/10/2009

Elegant ways to recycle magazines to new readers

Filed under: General — John Mennell @ 12:27 pm

Is it possible that just reading the book In Pursuit of Elegance would fill our literacy tool chest with elegant solutions? Perhaps just having finished the Power of Intention audio book helped to move things along.

In the last two days I have encountered two beautifully elegant magazine recycling ideas that help to resolve some sticky challenges associated with the logistics of moving magazines around to new readers.

bluebin.org is a new web service that facilitates the re-use of goods within a community - much like freecycle.org - which is also a great idea. bluebin is blessed with a very friendly Web 2.0 design. When I arrived at the site, there were already some magazines listed for re-use. We’ve added some of our own and will encourage others to do so. This especially helps us address situations where generous consumers want to donate their magazines for literacy from locations where we do not yet have a volunteer team in place to manage the flow to community literacy programs.

Today, I spoke to a wonderful magazine distributor in Wisconsin who wants to get surplus, expired copies of magazines from the newsstand to new readers. This person has a ready supply of magazines that children and adults would love to read - especially our neighbors who find themselves in homeless or domestic violence shelters, or children in after-school or other mentoring programs. One of our most difficult challenges for our literacy marketplace is moving magazines around from literacy champions to literacy agents. The incredibly elegant beauty of this opportunity is that the Wisconsin distributor travels the State, picking up the surplus magazines, and readily wants to help deliver them to our volunteer teams or community literacy programs. The solution is win-win, where we bring literacy needs to the table that the distributor enjoys filling and children and families can enjoy magazines that would have otherwise been destroyed.

We’ve dreamed of tapping this newsstand link in the magazine supply chain since our inception and have had some success already. Developing this model further will teach lessons that will enable us to quickly inspire others to replicate the program. We are boosted by a convergence with technology that now allows distributors to scan returned magazines for audit purposes, rather than tearing their covers or otherwise returning them for destruction.

8/28/2009

No silver lining in demise of Reading Rainbow

Filed under: Literacy, Reading — John Mennell @ 4:27 am

Recent news about the financial demise of Reading Rainbow, one of PBS’s most popular and important literacy programs for children for over 25 years is a dark cloud with no silver lining. However, there are important lessons about the need for literacy projects to not only invite and inspire children and families to want to enjoy reading, but also to focus on teaching young people how to read. We are saddened by the loss of this great program, and will no less celebrate the joy of reading, but will redouble our efforts to know and to apply lessons about reading fundamentals to our magazine literacy work.

5/9/2009

The Other America is still out there and needs our undivided attention

Filed under: Poverty — John Mennell @ 2:01 am

I am, for the first time in my life, in South Dakota, traveling by car from the East Coast to the West Coast. I borrowed a book on tape for the trip: “The Last Campaign: Robert F. Kennedy and 82 Days That Inspired America.” I’ve just come through Indiana, where RFK entered, and won - against so many odds - his first primary. The book details RFK’s presidential campaign journey through to his most significant primary wins, which happened on the same night in California and South Dakota.

I was too young to know about all this and so much more that was happening at the time. What is most striking about the story is not the politics, but the purpose of RFK’s campaign - spotlighting at every chance - the plight of poor children and families in America. A decade later, my own coming of age was fed by Michael Harrington’s, “The Other America,” Jonathan Kozol’s “Savage Inequalities: Children in America’s Schools,” and Janet Fitchen’s “Poverty in Rural America.”

However, somewhere along the way, I feel as though my attention shifted away from the reality that there are still millions of children and families in American who are hungry - for food; for shelter; for protection; for literacy; for our steady and compassionate attention.

There have been too many distractions over too long a span to place a finger on where and when the blinders went on - welfare reform, 9/11, the boom and bust economy; bombardment by email, cell phones, Blackberries, MySpace, Facebook, and Twitter. Where did it begin and where will it end?

There are stories in the book about two days that RFK spent in South Dakota - most significantly at the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, and other accounts about meeting children in the Mississippi delta. Children were dying from poverty in both places, and countless others - one child died the day he was at Pine Ridge. Today, racing down I-90, forty years after RFK’s visit to Pine Ridge, I kept working through my mind, over and over, whether we could possibly still have that kind of poverty here and other places in America. Having organized hunger relief initiatives, and now literacy projects for over twenty years, I am hardly naive, but have admittedly lost my way.

The truth was revealed by a few thumb clicks on my Blackberry. I learned that places in America that breed desperation and despair are not without serious strife and controversy - that would be too much to expect. I should have known, but also learned today that the children and families who live in the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation still face desperate poverty and an overwhelming array of afflictions.

So, what can we do? We can and will redouble our efforts to shine a bright spotlight on literacy needs in communities like this and to inspire champions like you to give undivided, compassionate attention to millions of children and families hungry to enjoy reading. If the enormity of the challenge gives us pause, we will persevere together - we will not be guided or dissuaded by the politics of the past or present, but by a purpose for the future - we will make a difference one child, one family, one magazine at a time. Thank you for your support.

1/21/2009

Thank you for your passion to serve.

Filed under: Our Sponsors, Volunteers — John Mennell @ 3:10 am

First, I can not thank our volunteers and donors enough for their interest and participation in supporting the mission and goals of MagazineLiteracy.org, the first and only global, magazine industry-wide literacy campaign for children and families.

We have accomplished so much thanks to the commitment and self-initiative of hundreds of individuals. Still, we have so much to do, with your help, to meet our full promise to children and families who want to learn and love to read magazines.

We have learned many lessons, doing many things well, and some things not so well. One area that needs improvement is our communication and follow-up with the volunteers and supporters who are so generous in offering their time, ideas, dollars, magazines, and passion.

Due to many intense economic and social forces, we face a perfect storm of challenge, need, opportunity, and responsibility. As an all volunteer organization with a global vision, the interest in our work and the demands placed on our organization have exceeded our capacity serve them. We risk neglecting a timely opportunity to deploy willing volunteers and to tap generous benefactors to meet local literacy needs, while addressing global environmental challenges.

We are grateful for the patience of our stakeholders while we rethink and re-engineer MagazineLiteracy.org through these “growing pains.” We are stronger and even more determined to succeed and to better prepare and deploy our volunteers and other resources in community service across the U.S., and around the world. This is both an opportunity and a responsibility for MagazineLiteracy.org.

We still have a journey ahead of us to strengthen our ability to provide steady, sustainable support to our volunteers and donors. As we develop this capability, we want to continue to organize effective, successful community based magazine literacy projects. We can provide access to collaboration and social networking tools and information to help community literacy projects to grow and prosper, but we need our supporters to be the seeds of this vast endeavor. We need to rely on the dedication and the self-initiative of our volunteers and donors to self-educate, and to self-organize, and to lead and promote magazine literacy projects that identify and meet the needs of children and families in their own communities. From that will emerge a massive marketplace of great ideas shared between and among local MagPower Teams, using the tools and communications channels available at MagazineLiteracy.org.

Our first task is to organize individual volunteers into community teams, so they can work together to meet local needs. We will utilize BigTent, an online team collaboration tool, and other methods, to organize each of our community volunteer MagTeams and to serve as a repository for information and to foster communication across local groups.

Many supporters have already organized very important magazine literacy projects in their own communities. We want to hear about and celebrate these projects, as models for others to replicate. Please be sure to contact us with the details so we can post your stories in our Literacy Bee blog.

About ten years ago, I walked from Washington DC to Boston - twenty miles a day, for thirty days. I could not imagine how I would begin, yet alone complete such a walk of one million footsteps. How did I do it? How did I get to my destination over such a vast distance of so many horizons? One step at a time. Let these be the first steps in your so important and meaningful journey to find and to feed children and families hungry to read. Working and walking together, we are changing the world, one magazine, one child, one family at a time. Thank you again for your passion to serve.

11/12/2008

Getting back to reading basics to rebuild a prosperous society

Filed under: General, Ideas, Literacy, Poverty, Reading — John Mennell @ 6:13 am

We have all heard “give a person a fish and you feed them for a day… teach them to fish and you feed them for life.” I say, “first you need to feed a person, so they have the strength and the dignity to learn how to fish… next, you need to teach them to read.”

Although I’ve been deeply involved in community and public policy and public service for many decades, I don’t usually comment on education or literacy policy. There are certainly more than enough experts and pundits, and we strive to be a literacy “big tent” - remaining non-partisan in our public service.

Our mission at MagazineLiteracy.org is to leverage our talent and resources to facilitate the flow of reading materials from their varied and generous sources to new readers, not to reinvent the literacy wheels that are already well in motion or to overlap or to presume the needs of expert literacy agents.

However, the intensity of the current economic calamity and the impending dam burst of government and public financing and leadership necessary to reverse it and restore any semblance of balance drives me to underscore the obvious importance of getting back to and sticking with the basics, such as teaching children to read, and getting reading materials into homes with barren bookshelves.

The task will be that much more challenging, but no less important, as public service agents struggle to meet even more critical needs, like food for hungry children, families, and elderly neighbors. As consumers limit spending to necessities, and commerce slows, leading to more layoffs, the already frayed safety net of emergency food, shelter, and health care will be stretched to the breaking point.

If literacy and reading skills are the most basic ingredient for success and productivity in every corner of society, then it’s too easy, but terribly painful now to ask why so many children and adults in the U.S. and around the world cannot read well enough. Even with so much riding on the wave of a digital economy, the fastest growing e-commerce opportunities are around text messaging. No matter how many pages the internet grows to, no matter how many books Google digitizes, no matter how many magazines are available on the Kindle, not one can be read by a child or an adult unable to read.

Join our mission to feed children and families hungry to read and succeed.

11/7/2008

Leveraging technology is game changing for magazine literacy

Filed under: Second Life, Technology — John Mennell @ 9:04 am

We are just getting started in Second Life and the learning curve is definitely a challenge. We factor that in to our exploration of new technologies, but we also look to engage volunteers who have particular interests and skills - to flatten the curve. Managing this brings its own challenges, but the benefits far outweigh the costs.

We don’t know what we don’t know.

Our focus on innovation and looking for ways to leverage new social networking and web technology tools helps to increase awareness and engagement of stakeholders and to drive down costs. The opportunity to find hidden value in untapped veins drives our literacy progress forward. If the spaghetti sticks on the wall, we go deeper… if it slides off, we clean up the mess and cook another pot.

In this free social marketplace, we can find and engage untapped volunteer resources - individuals and businesses who have not yet been called on or motivated to act, without necessarily diverting them away from other important social priorities or our other work - untapped not because they are uninterested, but for lack of common interest at the finest level of detail.

We are often asked what relevance this magazine or that magazine will have in meeting child and family literacy needs. Some, like Highlights, or Ranger Rick, or Scientific American are obvious resources. But, how could a bowling magazine be of value or the trade magazine of the “American Pot Stickers Association?” It might just be that bowling magazine or that trade journal that can uniquely inspire the bond around a common interest between a mentor and a child learning to read.

So the risk of failure, and the possibility of diminishing returns aside, the chance to exercise any amount of previously untapped value trumps ignoring the possibilities.

Tremendous forces rock our world of magazine literacy

Filed under: Literacy, Our Partners, Our Sponsors, Volunteers — John Mennell @ 12:36 am

It’s timely to reflect on the tremendous forces and upheavals in the economic, political, and community landscapes that are shaping the ecosystem for our magazine literacy mission. Financial markets are down - then up - then down again. Government, education, human, and community services face enormous funding gaps that demand doing more with less. Within this context, the value of our new and recycled magazines increases significantly for teachers and other community literacy agents helping children and families who want to learn and love to read. Getting reading materials into homes becomes even more imperative as the fabric of safety net wears thin. On the other hand, citizen engagement and activism are way up, thanks to a sweeping non-partisan, national call to public service that will amplify in coming months. Our challenge is to improve our capabilities and collaboration to better inventory and spotlight literacy needs, while channeling and focusing the generous outpouring of compassion and support to meet those needs. Help us to find and feed those hungry to read. Join us to change the world - one magazine - one new reader at a time.

10/20/2008

A Second Life for MagazineLiteracy.org

Filed under: Second Life, Technology — John Mennell @ 12:33 am

Second Life - Nonprofit Commons

We have embarked on a “moon shot” endeavor to create a portal into the new frontier of Second Life for MagazineLiteracy.org stakeholders by joining the Nonprofit Commons initiative.

In World Contact - MagazineLiteracy Kidd

Second Life is a vast virtual world where millions of residents interact and participate in a bustling economy. Contemplating Second Life, I’ve often lamented finding enough time to manage our “first life.” However, the chance to promote literacy inside Second Life and to engage residents there to support our mission and to grow our project, as well as the opportunity to collaborate with other non-profit organizations is too compelling to delay.

There is tremendous value in fostering communications and collaboration among community service organizations, especially by leveraging online technology that spans the globe. The virtual network made possible by Second Life allows for real-time information sharing about MagazineLiteracy.org with residents and thought leaders across many disciplines.

Over the years, I have learned first hand, how challenging it is to raise awareness, funds, and other resources necessary to support organizations dedicated to meeting basic human and community needs. Earlier in my community service career, I partnered with the local volunteer bureau director to create a model collaborative office facility and resource center for community non-profits. It was a place where good ideas - large and small - could take root and incubate. Since then, I have striven to find ways to leverage technology, and especially the Internet, to connect people who want to help, to the organizations and ideas that serve people who need help. We will extend this vision by being active citizens in Second Life - promoting MagazineLiteracy.org as well as the ideals of the Nonprofit Commons. We are looking forward to forming an entirely fresh set of literacy partnerships with the individuals, organizations, and businesses in Second Life - a new frontier for MagazineLiteracy.org.

10/15/2008

Changing the world… one Google click at a time!

Filed under: General — John Mennell @ 12:36 pm

Thanks to advertising and sponsored web links donated by Google Adwords, we’ve noticed a significant increase in web traffic and contacts from people and business owners who want to support MagazineLiteracy.org programs. Our most important and mission critical task is reaching more people who want to help to find and support literacy needs in their own communities. Our mission is to connect generous donors of time, magazines, and financial support to opportunities that support children and families learning to read. To-date, we have received over 17,000 clicks from over 1.4 million web ads provided by Google. Together with Google, we are changing the world - one click… one magazine at a time!

9/10/2008

Webconference.com - a virtual coffee shop - takes our global grassroots collaboration to the next level

Filed under: Our Partners, Our Sponsors — John Mennell @ 7:15 pm

Today, Webconference.com has helped us to launch an online conference and collaboration tool that gets us to an entirely game-changing level of teamwork. Utilizing the webconference.com service, we can now connect the many volunteers and literacy agents that come together to collect and distribute magazines to new readers. These meetings can happen anywhere, anytime. The web conference capability allows our teams to meet and to share information and lessons learned, within their own groups and across teams, pollinating MagazineLiteracy.org in communities across the U.S. and around the world.

Our success at MagazineLiteracy.org depends on organizing and equipping grassroots, community-based teams around the world with the information and tools they need to find and feed children and families hungry to read. So more invested time and dollars can provide direct support to new readers and the literacy agents we serve, we leverage online technology extensively to maximize our team-building success. webconference.com is a feature-rich application that allows us to integrate VoIP, video, screen-sharing, Web touring, live annotation, whiteboard, presentations, and file sharing, as well as recording of our events and training materials. We are looking forward to all that is now possible with our vastly improved communications and collaboration platform provided by webconference.com.

8/24/2008

Angel investors underwrite magazine literacy

Filed under: KinderHarvest, Volunteers — John Mennell @ 11:48 am

MagazineLiteracy.org is an entreprenaural start-up, fueled by bold, passionate, driven volunteers. I often receive emails from the field that remind me of the line in “It’s a Wonderful Life” when Zuzu Bailey hears a bell ring and exclaims,

“Look, Daddy. Teacher says, every time a bell rings an angel gets his wings.”

Each of these emails is a ringing bell.

Early this morning I received an email from a wonderful person in Brooklyn who had originally written to inquire about donating recycled magazines for new readers. I replied that we were not set up well yet in her area, but would do our best to match her magazines to meet nearby literacy needs (we never say no). When you read it her immediate response, you will understand my joy:

Hi John,

I work in a restaurant. We get the New Yorker delivered… I ended up recycling a bunch of them a couple weeks back after I first emailed you… I live in Brooklyn NY and work in NYC. If the program is not well established in this area I’d like to help you to start it up…

Katie Simmons in Boston is another angel investor in our global magazine literacy enterprise - since beginning her volunteer investment (she would say adventure) more than a year ago, Katie has collected thousands of magazines for children and families in homeless and domestic violence shelters, after-school programs, senior centers, and many other community literacy programs. She is relentless and unstoppable in her passion and generous giving.

A few days ago, I received an email from Lori Moody, and the angel bell rang again.

Hi John,

Just a note to let you know the magazine drives I’ve been involved with the last year have been very rewarding. Several of my friends and family pitched in to help bring magazines to those that would never have received such reading materials.

We started in Atlanta with a successful drive last September and October and delivered over 1,000 magazines to several homeless shelters, and nursing homes throughout the city… I also had a drive in Orlando, with the help of my son, and several close friends. We collected magazines from churches, doctors offices, and anyone that found out about our effort… a group that helps teens through rough times received the majority of the magazines, as well as a nursing home.

I wanted to let you know how… Magazine Literacy has truly impacted a lot of lives. The hours of enjoying magazines, truly does provide an escape of pleasure, as well as offering literacy skills… I am glad to be involved.

A couple years ago, a kindergarten teacher organized his children to collect and deliver recycled magazines to a nearby homeless shelter.

A few weeks ago, Tensie reported collecting 600 magazines in Miami, and they are still coming in. Each and every one, and countless others, are angel investors helping to change the world, one magazine at a time.

In the next couple of weeks, bells will be ringing in the start of a new school year. Children return to school hungry for knowledge. Become an angel investor to feed kids and families hungry to love and learn to read.

Magazine Recycling Lessons Learned

Filed under: FAQs, KinderHarvest, Our Programs, Volunteers — John Mennell @ 10:28 am

From time to time, I like to share responses I’ve sent to questions in emails, so our stakeholders benefit from the lessons we learn everyday.

Today I was asked, “Where did this program originate? Is it fairly new?”

Well, to make a long story long…

The idea for KinderHarvest, our magazine recycling program, originally came to me back in 1994… Since 1985, I had been conducting food drives… standing in front of supermarkets to collect groceries for food pantries with empty shelves. I could stand in front of a store and collect 2,000 pounds of groceries in a single day. My kids were growing up and getting their magazines… I realized that the hungry families we were feeding could not afford magazines and most did not have many reading materials at home.

I wanted to change that.

For a few years, I organized magazine sponsorships between donors and schools, so I set out to grow that success to other communities, on a national, then global basis. As the internet developed, I knew I could leverage technology to accelerate our growth. Fast forward to 2004, I founded MagazineLiteracy.org. A couple of years ago, around Earth Day, it occurred to me that we could collect gently used magazines the same way food drives are organized. With research, I learned that there had been a few wonderful efforts in Seattle, North Carolina, and Hawaii, but no national or global effort. So with the help of many passionate volunteers, generous donors, and appreciative literacy agents, we’ve been collecting magazines ever since.

We have learned some important lessons since our start, and are working to improve our reach and our operations every day:

  1. moving magazines around is hard work that requires help from lots of caring, passionate people
  2. before collecting magazines, it’s important to know where you will be bringing them
  3. it’s important for agencies and new readers to receive good quality magazines.

Join us to change the world - one magazine at a time!

8/23/2008

A relay to get recycled magazines from donors to new readers

Filed under: Ideas, KinderHarvest, Technology, Volunteers — John Mennell @ 10:38 am

We are in the business of moving magazines around, more directly than otherwise with our KinderHarvest programs, which recycles magazines from donors to new readers. This presents many and varied logistical challenges for our all volunteer teams. Transporting magazines demands human, transportation, and financial resources. We are blessed with many volunteers. However, their physical locations and availability vary. We are blessed with many magazine donors. Again, their locations, timing, and frequency of involvement vary. We service many literacy agents who accept our recycled magazine donations and provide them to new readers. Urban communities present different challenges than suburban or rural landscapes. So, how do we make all these pieces hum - efficiently, timely, and effectively?

We are exploring a number of ideas. One is the Magazine Bundle Relay, where a network of volunteers are connected by web and mobile telephone technology - each volunteer taking up a small part of the magazine collection or delivery - along a chain that overall gets magazines from donors to literacy agents. We’ve recently discovered and are exploring use of grassroots mobile text messaging to activate this network, using FrontlineSMS. We’ll need to understand whether SMS text messaging introduces fees that we would not want to impose on our volunteers.

Our relay system will be organized as shown in the above diagram, with donors represented by the magazine bundles; literacy agents represented by the girl reading; and volunteers by the yellow happy faces. Be in touch to join the relay.

8/21/2008

Readcycling magazines to children and families in developing countries

Filed under: KinderHarvest, Our Partners — John Mennell @ 8:14 pm

Today I had the great pleasure of meeting Florevel Fusin-Wischusen who founded Readcycle.org to collect and ship books to children in schools in the Philippines and other places around the world. Floe launched her vision during the during Lehigh University’s “Day of Caring” on March 6, 2007. She mobilized the collection, packaging, and shipping of over 8,000 books to schools in the Philippines.

At MagazineLiteracy.org, our KinderHarvest program rescues gently used and new magazines and recycles them to children and families in homeless and domestic violence shelters; to hungry families who pick-up bags of groceries at food pantries; to children in early learning and after school programs; to seniors citizens, and to other new readers.

We are looking forward to the opportunity to work with Readcycle to develop a channel for shipping recycled magazines overseas to new readers in developing communities in the Philippines and elsewhere. MagazineLiteracy.org will focus on the collection of magazines and Readcycle will focus on working through the logistical challenges associated with such an undertaking, such as shipping, as well as the social and legal realities related to the receipt and use of magazines from abroad in host countries. Together, we’ll change the world - one magazine at a time!

A Lucky day for magazine literacy

Filed under: FAQs, Ideas, KinderHarvest, Our Sponsors — John Mennell @ 8:13 pm

Thank you Conde Nast for shipping us 11 boxes of Lucky magazine, which will be recycled to new readers in homeless and domestic violence shelters, and in bags of groceries delivered to families by food pantries.

The question is often raised whether a homeless, or hungry, or battered person can really appreciate or enjoy a lifestyle magazine like Lucky, filled with page after page of glorious, though seemingly irrelevant or unattainable trinkets. My reaction? Though I may never pilot a futuristic jet into space, I love to read about them blazing through the pages of Popular Science magazine. I may never own a 75 foot yacht, but my smile widens at the sight of a magazine cover filled with a classic sailing vessel bent windward. Are these things any more relevant or attainable to me outside my pure joy discovering them in magazines bought from the newsstand or that arrive in my mailbox? (In the spirit of full disclosure, and much to my family’s dismay, I did purchase my own wooden sinkhole at auction on ebay - a classic 25 foot folkboat - $80 to own it… $800 to move it to my backyard for restoration).

For ourselves, we may wish to see things, not as they are today, but as they can be tomorrow. No matter our current station in life, we can hope and dream, and set goals, or just simply enjoy the world around us without expectation - whether a raindrop sliding down a window pane, a pretty weed flowering in a sidewalk crack, or a wonderful magazine. These are all gifts.

It is not necessarily so much in their colorful, material glamor that magazines of any type create value for new readers. But, in in the access; the availability; the reach; and the freedom to read about those things that bring knowledge, pleasure and joy. In this, we are created equal.

8/9/2008

Listen to a great story about a boy who loves frogs and magazines

Filed under: KinderHarvest — John Mennell @ 11:44 am

Below is an excerpt from a wonderful voicemail I received from Katie Simmons, our Boston KinderHarvest leader, about a boy in a domestic violence shelter who received four copies of Ranger Rick (he said he’d give one to his brother!).

To fully enjoy it, listen to the entire message posted in our Literacy Bee blog, written by our volunteers.

…Oh my goodness, another just heartwarming, wonderful interaction… I just dropped off magazines at a women’s shelter… they happened to be having dinner, and this little boy was talking to the woman I was giving magazines to and she was saying the women love the magazines and this is great…

And this boy came up and I introduced myself and said “Hey, how old are you?”… and he said, “I’m in the second grade, but I should be in the third grade.”… and I said, “Do you like magazines?”… and he said, “I LOVE magazines!”… so I said, “Do you like nature?”… and he said, “I DO!”…and so I, of course, ran out to my Jeep, and gave him four Ranger Ricks, because he told me he loves frogs.

Oh my gosh! I almost started crying every time… just because, you know, I think… here he was as part of a family that was part of domestic violence, but yet now, he is just so happy when he sees the magazine and the woman even said to me, “Oh, I’m sure he is going to take them to bed tonight.”… and he has a little brother, so he told me he was going to give his little brother a magazine too!

8/7/2008

Knowledge is power

Filed under: KinderHarvest, Volunteers — John Mennell @ 1:43 pm

Our great strength is in the hard-working, self-directed, resourceful volunteers on the ground who strive to meet literacy needs in their own communities. I was recently contacted by a very special person in Miami who happened upon our project and within weeks collected over 600 magazines to recycle to new readers. Finding new agencies to accept magazines can sometimes be daunting, no matter how many programs are already happily involved around the U.S., so we try to lend a helping hand with outreach.

Today, on one such call, hearing three words reminded me what our work is all about. I called a food pantry in Miami to find new homes for the new supply of magazines. We love the idea of getting reading materials into homes in the bags of groceries that families receive - so, feeding people hungry to read. I was greeted by a wonderful woman who exclaimed her interest with with the simple, but striking phrase “knowledge is power.” Her point was that getting information and knowledge into homes empowers people and families to meet the challenges they face and to aspire to and achieve their fullest potential. Magazines are engaging - they are colorful, topical, and timely - and fun too!

So, today was a very good day for changing the world, one magazine at a time!

4/22/2008

Celebrate Magazine Recycling Abundance on Earth Day

Filed under: KinderHarvest, Volunteers — John Mennell @ 12:32 pm

Earth Day is a wonderful milestone for MagazineLiteracy.org. We launched our KinderHarvest magazine recycling project on Earth Day a couple of years ago, kicking it off by matching 40,000+ surplus children’s magazines at publisher printing plants to all the Head Start programs in Mississippi and, in partnership with food banks in New Hampshire and Maine to families in New England served by food pantries.

Since Earth Day last year, an incredible volunteer organizer in the Boston area - Katie Simmons - has collected and recycled 5,000 magazines to children and families in 20 locations, including homeless and domestic violence shelters, transitional housing and work empowerment programs, senior centers, youth mentoring programs, a VA hospital, and other community programs. The feedback from agencies receiving magazines has been overwhelmingly positive.

This week, I heard from the teachers at an elementary school in Maryland who self-initiated and then completely managed a magazine drive with students that collected 523 magazines for a local food pantry and shelter. The great power of this effort, aside from feeding hundreds of children and families hungry to read, is that it was done on their own by utilizing the information on our website. This is exactly the kind of leveraged effort that we are working to replicate in communities across the U.S. and around the world, working with education, reading, magazine, and hunger relief, and other stakeholders.

Learn more about our grassroots magazine literacy campaigns and how to start one in your community in our Magazine Literacy Bee blog, written by volunteers. Sign-up today to launch a KinderHarvest magazine recycling team in your town.

4/10/2008

Visit the Magazine Literacy Bee blog written by our volunteers

Filed under: Our Programs, Volunteers — John Mennell @ 9:38 am

Magazine Literacy Bee - changing the world, one magazine at a time.

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