A book drive organized by two sophomores as part of a citywide effort collected dozens of books to promote children’s literacy throughout Chicago. 

All books collected from May 5-9 were donated to Books4Cause. Books4Cause strives to increase literacy rates in underserved areas around the United States.  

Every year, the Daniel Murphy Scholarship Fund does different service projects. This year, they decided to do a literacy project, thus developing the idea for a book drive.

Sophomores Aya El Bissati and Jairy Felix are two members of the Daniel Murphy Scholarship Fund, a program that spans different Chicago schools. 

Together, Aya and Jairy collected over 120 books, but not without some help from U-High’s library advisory board, HLAB.

“Because the Daniel Murphy scholarship is not directly related to Lab, we had the help of HLAB with funding and finding a place for books to be dropped off,” Aya said.

A box for books was placed in the high school lobby, so both middle school and high school students could donate books. 

Their primary goal was to promote literacy throughout Chicago, primarily to underserved communities.

“We didn’t much care for how many books we raised, we just really wanted to allow people to have the opportunity to read books and learn to find a love for reading and literature,” Aya said.  

Aya believes they did just this. 

“We achieved our goal because we never expected to have so many books donated,” Aya said. “Books4Cause was so thankful when we dropped the books off, which made us feel like we really made an impact.”