A Book of Their Own: Estero Nonprofit Puts Books Into the Hands of 6,800 Young Children
BelieveNBooks' new My Very Own Book initiative has reached pre-kindergarten students at more than 150 early learning centers across eight Florida counties — Lee and Collier among them — with a copy of Pete the Cat to take home and keep.
Estero — More than 6,800 young children across Southwest Florida and the state's Heartland now own a book that is theirs to keep. The Estero-based nonprofit BelieveNBooks has launched My Very Own Book, an initiative that delivered books to pre-kindergarten students through more than 150 early learning centers, the News-Press reported.
The distribution ran through partnerships with the Early Learning Coalition of Southwest Florida and the Early Learning Coalition of Florida's Heartland, reaching children in Lee, Collier, Hendry, Glades, Charlotte, DeSoto, Hardee and Highlands counties. Each child received a copy of Pete the Cat: Too Cool for School, together with access to a read-aloud video version of the book.
The point, the organization says, is the home library: a first book a child owns supports early literacy, English-language development and readiness for kindergarten. BelieveNBooks was founded in 2021 by Natasha Agarwal, who started it as an eighth grader living near Naples after organizing a book drive for a local subsidized preschool during the pandemic; she is now a sophomore at the University of Pennsylvania.
My Very Own Book is one of the nonprofit's largest coordinated early-childhood distributions so far, and the plan is to expand it across Florida and then nationally. Counting this launch, BelieveNBooks says it has now distributed more than 250,000 books to more than 50,000 children in need.
