By: AIF Staff
This year, as part of its work supporting front-line organizations who are developing evidence-based approaches to fighting poverty, the American Idea Foundation has provided grants to 7 groups across the country.
These organizations were selected because they are policy entrepreneurs, innovative problem-solvers, and leaders in their respective communities. The policy problems that these organizations are tackling vary greatly, but these groups share the belief that the American Dream should be accessible to everyone and they have created programs to achieve this noble goal. Like Speaker Ryan, these groups believe evidence and data should drive decision-making and have designed their programs accordingly.
One organization receiving funding and institutional support from Speaker Ryan and the American Idea Foundation in 2023 is Bernie’s Book Bank in Chicago, Illinois.
Bernie’s Book Bank was founded in 2009 on a simple premise: Reading is a vital skill for every child and children, particularly those in under-served communities, need access to books, to properly develop this skill. If a child has access to books and develops an early love of reading, the positive effects will reverberate throughout their life.
Bernie’s Book Bank knows how critical reading is for young children’s development and understands how education can offer a pathway out of poverty. It is why, fifteen years ago, Bernie’s Book Bank started distributing books to under-served children from a garage in Chicago.
Bernie’s Book Bank sources new and gently used books from individual donors around the country, group them by age-appropriateness, and then select a group of 8 new and used books to be packaged for distribution. The Book Bank delivers books directly to the children they serve via school districts and early childhood programs in the Chicagoland area. In one year, each child served will receive a total of 8 quality children’s books to take home and call their own.
In the organization’s first 12 months, Bernie’s Book Bank sourced, processed, and distributed 140,000 children’s books. In its second year, Bernie’s Book Bank expanded and distributed 350,000 books to more than 35,000 children. By the end of 2012, it had distributed 1 million books. In 2019, it reached 15 million. By 2023, Bernie’s Book Bank had distributed over 25 million books since its founding.
Bernie’s Book Bank knows that where a student resides will often affect their ability to get a quality education. It can affect their ability to access reading materials, particularly at a young age, and impact their desire to pursue an education as they mature. Bernie’s Book Bank knows that reading can transform children’s worlds. Books can offer children new perspectives, teach new lessons, or inspire passion about a particular subject. It is fundamental to a child’s development but all too often, children are falling behind.
In Illinois, according to a 2019 survey by the Casey Foundation, 66% of fourth-graders in the state were not proficient in reading. The strains on our educational system only worsened during the pandemic, with lower-income areas being hardest hit. Illinois and other communities need organizations like Bernie’s Book Bank now more than ever.
Because of their success in Illinois and because of the demand for books in other cities, Bernie’s Book Bank is scaling their efforts in Southern Wisconsin and building out programming through Milwaukee’s public school system.
The American Idea Foundation is going to spend the next year working with Bernie’s Book Bank to ensure that more children in Illinois and Wisconsin have access to reading materials of their own. The Foundation and Speaker Ryan will help Bernie’s Book Bank as they assess and measure the impact book ownership has on the short-term and long-term development of the children it serves. Anecdotes and personal stories about how Bernie’s Book Bank has changed children’s life are plentiful.
By pairing these stories of transformation with tangible, empirically sound evidence, other communities can see the effect Bernie’s Book Bank is having in Chicago and hopefully develop similar programs to help children in under-served communities experience the joy, and the benefits, of reading.
