Young Philanthropist Aims Big: End Illiteracy
Bobby Washington is a 7th grader at Callanan Middle School who has formed his own non-profit organization with the goal of ending illiteracy in Africa.
No one can accuse Bobby Washington of thinking small and he probably doesn’t need reminding to carry his books home from school. The Callanan Middle School student has his sights set on the elimination of illiteracy, that’s all. Starting now, not after he’s all grown up. How much extra credit does a 7th grader get for a project like that?
Bobby received this year’s Evelyn K. Davis Youth Award at the I’ll Make Me A World in Iowa’s annual Embracing Excellence Gala. The event was held at the Veterans Auditorium Community Choice Credit Union Convention Center.
The award recognizes young people that exemplify the community service-minded mission of I’ll Make Me a World in Iowa, the organization that annually presents Iowa’s grandest African American festival.
Last year at the event, Bobby came up with an idea and entered a contest to pitch it. He won 3rd place and a $25 prize. Books From Bobby Inc. was established and since then has achieved 501C3 status. It now operates as a nonprofit organization that promotes literacy in Africa and around the world.
“A year ago I was at Hoyt Middle School,” said Bobby’s mother, Callanan teacher Stacie Mitchell-Gweah, “and I took a group of students to the ‘I’ll Make Me a World’ event. Bobby’s idea started there and has just continued to grow.”
Mitchell-Gweah, by the way, is an award-winner in her own right, having been named a recipient of the Golden Apple teaching award earlier this month. She is listed at the BFB website as a co-founder and board member of the organization.
In December BFB donated 250 new books to the Callanan PTA Book Swap. And now it’s officially partnered with the Peace Corps and two schools in Liberia, Johnny Volker Elementary and High School (the only K-12 school in the city of Seclepea) and Market School in Monrovia. The hope is to ship enough books, school supplies and educational materials and equipment from the schools’ wish lists to benefit approximately 2,000 students and 50 educators by year’s end.
As word of the ambitious project spreads the response is growing.
“We’ve got books in our basement, our garage – just about any place we can find to store them,” Bobby said. Donors already range from individuals to institutions. “The University of Northern Iowa is providing curriculum materials for the teachers at the Johnny Volker School,” said Mitchell-Gweah, as one for instance.
Books From Bobby’s contact in Liberia is Fong Zuagele, the recently elected equivalent of a school district superintendent. Bobby hopes to meet him personally when Zuagele takes delivery of a trove collected and shipped by a boy who’s been a crusader for global literacy longer than he’s been a teenager. Bobby turned 13 the day after Christmas. Maybe he’ll be in Liberia when the chronometer rolls to 14, self-cast in the role of an unlikely Santa Claus from America.
So once this mission is accomplished what will be Bobby’s next steps?
He grins and, without hesitation says, “Getting my learner’s permit.”
Leave it to his parents to teach him how to drive. But if you want to help him stamp out illiteracy, just head over to Books from Bobby.
