Tamara Harris, an English major at the University of San Francisco, also served as a reading tutor at Rosa Parks Elementary School in San Francisco, where she found “the students were always wanting more books.” She’s happy to fulfill her senior internship at the Children’s Book Project because, she says, “I wanted to put my skills to work for kids, and with books.” Tamara started writing her own stories in elementary school, spending many afternoons at the Daly City public library, where she would read aloud to younger kids. Now she enjoys encountering old favorites at our Book Bank, where she processes donated books, writes online children’s book recommendations, and participates in our Storytime program. “It’s been fun meeting new people who share my passion for reading, helping authors sign their books, and sharing the excitement when kids get to choose their own books at Storytime.”

“Volunteering at the Book Bank is really cool,” Tamara says. “I love being a helping hand in making sure kids get to grow up with books of their own.”

When he worked at Mercy Housing’s Sunnydale community center The Hub, Alejandro Buenrostro came to our Book Bank and was “thrilled to get everything we could have wanted to stock libraries in the community center, reading nooks across properties, and families’ personal libraries to promote literacy, education, interest exploration, and family connection.” Now Alejandro volunteers at our Book Bank “to get back in touch with that feeling of wonder and worlds opening up” that children’s books supply. As a child, Alejandro’s parents couldn’t read to him because they’d had to leave school at an early age. He learned to read at school, and says ever since he “loved siloing up in a corner at home, at the school or public library, making a nook to escape into, to enrich yourself while being absorbed in a different world, getting lost in the best of ways. Volunteering at the Children’s Book Project connects me to the wonder and solace that books have always given me. I find meaning being here and spreading book joy in the community.”