HamletHub's mission is to share stories like the one below, written by Meredith Karle. Turning Pages is an organization founded by Ridgefield High School student Meredith Karle and her cousin, Madeline Fouts with the mission of promoting education, wellness and a love of reading.
Here, Meredith explains how her passion for turning pages propelled her to help those around the globe learn, grow, hope, and thrive. Meredith is presently applying for nonprofit status for Turning Pages.
Meredith Karle's Essay
When I was about eight years old I remember hiding terrified in my closet as my father read a particularly alarming scene from the fourth Harry Potter book. “Do you want me to skip over this part?” he asked to a closed closet door.
My eight year old self, appalled by the notion that one would think for even a second about skipping over important Harry Potter details, despite how scary they might be, adamantly refused claiming I was, “fine” and, “not scared at all”.
One of my fondest childhood memories is of my father reading out loud the first five Harry Potter books to me. When his voice would tire he insisted we alternate reading one page, one page to which I grudgingly obliged. My reading skills improved tremendously as I struggled through Rowling's work. When it was time to delve into the sixth book I was now the one making the demands: I wanted to read this one all by myself.
My love of reading and passion for learning can be traced back to these formative moments. Having my own books to treasure, dog ear, scribble throughout and take into the bath is special to me now and as a young reader. I am so appreciative that my family always had the resources to provide me with my own books and the time to spare to help me work through them.
I want to be able to give families and children the same opportunity to fall in love with reading. Five years ago I learned that the biggest predictor of academic achievement is the presence of a home library which 61% of low income families lack and 80% of afterschool programs serving these families do not possess either. I sought to change these troubling statistics and provide books to people in need.
I co-founded Turning Pages with my cousin, Madeline Fouts with the mission of promoting education, wellness and a love of reading. In four years we have redistributed over 20,000 books to community centers, libraries and hospitals in need and grown the organization to be a club at my high school where we currently have around twenty active members. To distribute the books we solicited friends, family, stores and book sales for donations. We sorted and boxed the books we collected, researched places in need, coordinated with them, dropped the books off and arranged them at the centers. So far, we have created four libraries. One is for the Carver Center’s afterschool program which services underprivileged children. Turning Pages fulfills all their literary needs each year so they do not have to spend any of their limited budget on books. We also created and continue to fill libraries at the Danbury Family and Children’s Aid Center serving underprivileged children in the foster care system or in need of therapy, the Fort Lee Education Center which serves underprivileged children with behavioral issues and The Lawrenceville School Camp which provides a free summer camp experience to children who cannot afford one. In addition, we have given books to My Sister’s Place, Neighbors to Neighbors, the Veteran’s Hospital in the Bronx and the Abbott House.
Last year we challenged ourselves to make an international impact as well. We raised $1,500 through through bake sales, partnerships with local businesses and a school-wide Penny War event to sponsor the education of three children: Yainkain in Sierra Leone, Kavi in Nepal and Yavi in India through Plan International. We correspond with the children we sponsor and it is a special moment when I get to stand in front of the club reading a letter aloud, showing everyone the pictures the child has drawn and seeing everyone’s faces brighten as it is passed around.
One of the most valuable insights I have gained from my service is the importance having a team and incentivizing them appropriately to help achieve collective goals. Without a team of people I would not have been able to reach the sheer number of resources donated.
My passion for reading is an intrinsic part of who I am and my work with Turning Pages helps me to share that with the world. Turning Pages has grown larger than I ever could have imagined and has been recognized by the Congressional Gold Medal Award and the Service Award at Ridgefield High School. I wholeheartedly agree with J.K. Rowling’s sentiment that, “something very magical can happen when you read a good book,” and believe that in turn something very magical happens when you share a good book.