CHARLOTTE, N.C. — In a typical year, Promising Pages has been able to serve over 64,000 children and distribute almost 300,000 books in the Charlotte area's book deserts.
While that sounds like a lot, there's still plenty of work to be done.
"It's one book for every 300 children in low-income neighborhoods" Kelly Cates, Promising Pages' executive director, said. "So, imagine having to share one book with 299 of your closest neighbors. It's really why we are having such a hard time with kids being able to learn how to read on grade level by third grade. It's a problem."
Since 2011, the group's mission has been to tackle children's literacy problems with help from the community.
"When the community is generous with us, we can be generous with children, families and the nonprofits that we support with free books," Cates explained.
However, 2024 presented some unique challenges for Promising Pages. Specifically, the impacts of Hurricane Helene.
"With what happened in western North Carolina, we needed to focus on helping our neighbors to the west," Cates said. "We actually have already sent up a van full of books to a charter school that lost their elementary school and libraries."
That effort, Cates said, left the organization with a shortage in Charlotte and surrounding areas.
"We're around 50,000 books behind where we normally are at this time of year," Cates said. "So that's going to have an impact on our spring programs and how many children we can serve and how many schools we can do free book fairs in. We really need to up our donations."
WCNC Charlotte heard about the need and wanted to step in and help. Along with the TEGNA Foundation, the Parham Family Fund and Steel Skin Realty, the group contributed a $7,000 grant to help combat book scarcity around the Charlotte metro.
Cates said the money will help Promising Pages with its "Books on Break" program and help the organization get new books for children in the Queen City. Because Promising Pages has programs running all year long, this Giving Tuesday, your donation can make a difference.
"We go into affordable housing communities and we provide home libraries to children and then also free books to the entire, all of the residents, young and old," Cates said.
People are also welcome to donate their time. Cates says volunteers are critical to the nonprofit's mission. Groups of up to 12 people can volunteer three or four days a week. Cates says volunteers help clean and repair books and sort donations. This allows Promising Pages to quickly distribute books to kids and families.
Rebecca Olliff, a Wells Fargo employee, started bringing in a group of coworkers a few years ago. She said the experience is fun and makes her feel like they're making a difference in their community.
"We are huge on teaching civics and teaching children about the world around us," Olliff said. "We find a lot of that in the books and we come and volunteer as a group and read some of these books. It's nostalgic and reminds us of our childhood, but it's very important to give back to the students and children in the community."
Contact Jane Monreal at jmonreal@wcnc.com and follow her on Facebook, X and Instagram.