Starr Readers Book Drive

It never fails to amaze me how just one person can make a difference. For the past four years, Texas native, Karen Furlong, has been collecting and donating books to nine libraries in Rio Grande City public schools. The city is located along the TX-Mexico border and within Starr County, which is considered to have one of the hightest poverty levels in the country.

Despite this year's economic struggle, it looks like she may end up with a record number of donations and $5,000 worth of books to deliver. Karen delivers a diversity of books - classics, popular fiction, etc. - and this year she'll be buying more culturally oriented stories like Jonah Winter's Frida and Elena's Serenade by Campbell Geeslin.

If you would like to send some money, gift cards (a Barnes and Noble store that she works with will give her the books at discount), or actual books, you have until the 4th of January. Then the next day, she and her mamá, Evangeline Rodriguez Marino, will make their now traditional drive down to Starr County to deliver their gifts in time for Día de los Reyes. Please mail donations/ checks, made out to Starr Readers, to 3125 Damascus Way, Dallas, Texas, 75234.

Isn't that wonderful? So many of these children will be lucky to get any presents at all. If you'd like to read the whole article about the Starr Readers Book Drive, click here.

Perhaps, dear Readers, next Christmas, we can help out and have a little on-line book drive to send to Karen? I'm sure we all have many books that we could share with all the niños of Starr County.