* We
will use the money to buy books! We just started buying books directly from publishers
at sharply discounted prices so we could buy 8,000 brand new books. This will make an awful lot of happy children and spread the joy of reading in a big way.
* We've learned that sharing the joy of
reading is like rolling a snowball down a hill- it just gets bigger and bigger
the more support we have. In our first year we gave out 848 books. By year two
we had given out 10,000 books. Now, midway through year three we have given
away more than 15,000 books. So, really, the Best Buy @ 15 money will mean
delivering even more than 8,000 books!
*Spreading
the joy of reading is fun! Giving books out to children and seeing their eyes
light up with excitement is a great feeling. Winning $10,000 Best Buy@15
grant will spark the joy of reading and the joy of volunteering in a HUGE way.
At First Book, we love hearing from kindred spirits who are helping get more books into the hands of kids who need them. So we were blown away to learn about the founders of "My Own Book" (www.myownbook.net). Kyle and Brady Baldwin are teen-age brothers from Northern California whose entrepreneurial accomplishments would make most grown-ups envious. They started My Own Book to share their love of books and reading with disadvantaged kids in kindergarten to 3rd grade. So far, they have distributed more than 15,000 new books. Now that is impressive.
We want to help them succeed, and we hope you will, too.
My Own Book is competing in the Best Buy @ 15 challenge recognizing outstanding teen entrepreneurs. Their organization stands to win $10,000 -- an amount that will allow this wonderful group to reach new heights -- if they get enough people to send one text message and one online vote each day.
All you have to do is text bbyv14 to 32075 DAILYfrom now through January 9, 2009 (the last day to vote). You can add to their chances by voting online, too. For more information, visit their site (www.myownbook.net) or check out http://www.genv.net/bestbuy.
Please share this with your friends, family, office workers, teachers, classes -- anyone who cannot bear the thought of kids growing up without books in their homes. These Baldwin brothers are making a huge difference. Let's help them succeed.
Melinda H.
Our friends at Just One More Book (www.justonemorebook.com) were very supportive:
With a click of your mouse you can help generous, determined teenagers Kyle and Brady Baldwin, former guests of ourJustOneMoreBook! podcast, to buy 8000 books for children who need them.
Just click this link then put a check in the box next to “My Own Book” (you’ll have to select a second since the site requires you to register two votes at the same time), scroll to the bottom and specify your age range (no need to give personal details), then click Vote. It’s that easy!
They need your vote. It would be fabulous if we could all vote for them every day this month! And do spread the word!
More about these dedicated teenagers and their efforts to empower others through literacy:
Mark Blevis, Social Media strategist, producer, speaker,community developer, columnist and conference organizer writes about My Own Book (http://www.markblevis.com/ashokas-youth-venture-a-huge-disappointment/)
A few days ago I called on my Twitter network to participate in a vote to help brothers Kyle and Brady Baldwin win $10,000 with which to buy and distribute 8,000 books to needy children through the My Own Book Foundation they set up when they were 14 and 16 years old (hear an interview with Kyle and Brady Baldwin, here). The competition for the money is run by Ashoka’s Youth Venture and is apparently sponsored by Best Buy. The voting procedures aren’t the simplest and the site is anything but user-friendly, but it was worth it to spread the word for a good cause and to help these two young and selfless Boy Scouts raise money to continue the amazing work they do.
I called on the goodwill of my own community and specifically asked influential people like Mitch Joel (3,500 followers), Chris Penn (3,500 followers) and Chris Brogan (25,000 followers) to help spread the word to their networks and they helped spread the word. More people continued to retweet the appeal for voters. It seemed exciting to me that there would be a chance at helping Kyle and Brady win their money.
Alas, Ashoka’s Youth Venture website is not ready for prime time. The voting interface regularly fails or gets stuck when you submit your vote then tells you that you don’t have appropriate privileges to vote. You’re supposed to be able to vote once each day (not so). To make matters worse, the contact page doesn’t load so you can’t report any problems. I found another route to report concerns, and after 48 hours have heard nothing.
I blew the call. It would have been far better to appeal to everyone to donate $5 to the My Own Book Foundation. Even if only 3,500 people donated $5 each, Kyle and Brady would raise $17,500 — much more than they stand to win through a site that for all, intents and purposes, doesn’t really exist. Imagine if 25,000 people pitched in???
Book Dads (www.bookdads.com)help us rock the vote!
Focus on Books: My Own Book - Sharing The Love of Reading
This week in Focus on Books we’d like to tell you about a pair of enterprising teenagers named Kyle and Brady Baldwin who started a literacy program and website called My Own Book. Here is a description of their program from their website:
My Own Book is an organization where teens visit disadvantaged K through 3rd graders, read a story aloud, tell about the public library, and then each child gets to choose their very own book from a selection of brand new books. Finally, a book plate is added to the book with the child’s name on it. We are spreading the love of reading: one book at a time, one child at a time.
We learned about Kyle and Brady from Just One More Book!!, which also has a podcast interview with the two boys. The My Own Book program has it’s earliest beginnings in a 4H project for which Kyle organized a Reading Day at a local library, and has grown into a literacy program that has been awarded several grants and has given away more than 15,000 books.
They are now trying to win a $10,000 prize in a Best Buy @15 Challenge. Vote now for My Own Book and help them win this prize. There are two ways to vote:
With a click of your mouse you can help generous, determined teenagers Kyle and Brady Baldwin, former guests of ourJustOneMoreBook! podcast, to buy 8000 books for children who need them.