At one end of a twenty mile span of the 101 just north of Hollywood, there is a reader with a cherished collection of over 4,000 Marvel comic books who wants to share them – gift them – to new readers for literacy. He is a literacy superhero. At the other end is a teacher in a school near the border of East Los Angeles who wants to put these and other reading materials into the hands, homes, and hearts of students who literally have zero books at home. She and her colleagues who are answering this highest calling are literacy superheroes. Together, the consumer and the teacher are challenging us all to rise up to meet the challenge and the responsibility to bridge their enormous literacy opportunity to change lives for good.

To the Marines and other service members and veterans who recycle their favorite magazines to MagLiteracy.org, thank you for your service.

Magazine enthusiasts gift their favorite titles, like these Marine Corp Gazette, Leatherneck, Foreign Policy, Foreign Affairs, and Marine Corp University Journals, to MagLiteracy.org for delivery to eager at-risk readers via our literacy newsstands in food pantries, homeless shelters, youth mentoring, STEM, job training, and other literacy programs. With titles for every age, interest, professional aspiration, and language, magazines and comics are the most powerful literacy engines on the planet.

The National Wildlife Federation, the very first publisher to back our global literacy moonshot 25 years ago, has just gifted MagLiteracy.org enough Zoobie magazines to reach 18,000+ parents to read with their infants and children.

As we might have learned from Gus in My Big Fat Greek Wedding, and found in Wikipedia,”haptic” is from the Greek word haptόs for “palpable”. The sense of touch enhances our ability to learn. Studies show that human information retention and learning improve when print reading materials are held and pages are turned. So, the physical experience of reading combines with the visual and other senses to produce advantages in “getting a handle on a subject” to “grasp” concepts and lessons for, as Oprah would say, living our best life.

Fueled by a generous donation of over 200,000 high quality children’s magazines from Cricket Media, and expert logistics transport, warehousing, and delivery to literacy programs by the Quad company, our planets have aligned to launch our literacy mission to new heights.

By John Mennell

This was like the message in a bottle that you tossed into the ocean, coming back to you.

By John Mennell

By Amelia Robinson

“Personally, as a first generation student, education is something I’m very passionate about, and what got me interested in volunteering at MagazineLiteracy.org. The work being done to promote literacy in the greater Madison area is critical in the hopes of ending poverty, and I’m very fortunate to be part of it.”  — Abish Kharel – UW UNICEF Club

The pictures of young volunteers getting magazines and comics ready for delivery into the hands and homes of eager readers tell our story. Join us.

Our literacy mission according to first principles:

• The enormous value of literacy is well understood.
• With titles for every reading age, interest, and language, the unique benefits of printed magazines and comics for reading engagement and comprehension are well established.
• The literacy needs for tens of millions of U.S. and hundreds of millions of global at-risk, vulnerable, and illiterate readers is effectively constant and endless.
• The supply of magazine and comic book reading materials is effectively constant and endless, worldwide.
• Publishers love to create readers for good.
• Consumers love to share their deep enthusiasm for favorite media with kindred readers for good.

Therefore, our essential task at MagLiteracy.org is to form the partnerships that fund and operate the logistics to deliver the desired magazines and comics from where they are to the literacy programs, hands, homes, and hearts of eager readers.

We need your help. Join us.

John Crouse is a literacy road warrior who won’t want this attention – but his example is too compelling not to tell the world.

Like the light of the sun, it beautifies all things on which it shines, and is no less welcome in the palace than in the humblest home.

— Lewis Latimer

Thank you Mary in Connecticut for sharing your favorite magazines with our new eager readers at MagLiteracy.org. We love opening gifts boxes like this, which underscore why magazines and comics, with titles for every reading age, interest, and language, are the most powerful literacy engines on the planet.

A frequent question is how to get involved with MagLiteracy.org. There are literacy needs in every town – in your community – that you can help to meet. Foster children and moms and kids in domestic abuse shelters, comforting families during natural disasters and rebuilding after, reaching reader’s via food pantries, homeless students, children in mentoring programs, and adults in job training programs. With titles for every reading age and interest, sharing good quality favorite magazines and comics – both new and recycled – are powerful for literacy.
Here are some ideas to guide you. Contact us for more details.

We’ve reached the point where about half the inquiries to our literacy project come from desktop computers and a full half or more come directly from mobile devices. Thanks to the amazing support and hard work of so many individuals and businesses, coast to coast, and around the world, we have learned so many lessons about the enormous literacy power of magazines and comics. Literacy ends poverty. With titles for every reading age, interest, and language, magazines and comics are the most powerful literacy levers on the planet. 
Based on our experiences, and keeping those efforts and momentum in gear, we are embarking on a special mission to deploy a lean, leveraged, mobile, global humanitarian marketplace to deliver reading materials to at-risk readers wherever they exist. 
The marketplace is joining together these key stakeholders to find and feed every person eager and hungry to read:
Literacy Ambassadors to locate community literacy needs. 
Literacy Champions to crowdfund delivery of Literacy Newsstands, stocked with new and recycled magazines and comics with our forever promise that 100% of donations deliver literacy to at-risk readers. 
Literacy Angels to underwrite research, logistics, and operations. 
Literacy Bees to crowdsource the collection and delivery of recycled magazines and comics for literacy.
Literacy Agents – to use our magazines and comics to support the literacy needs of the at-risk readers they serve. 
Most important, you can help us to build this strong and sustainable literacy marketplace. 
This is our moonshot. Join us. 
Tell the world. 

In Kolkata India, an IT company and a job training program have teamed to plant a magazine literacy tree to feed hungry readers. This is the first in a series of articles to trace their journey together, so you can learn how to mobilize a literacy partnership where you live and work. 

Being a border state, Texans face illiteracy not only because of poverty, but also because of a language barrier in some cases. I really try to encourage donations of magazines in Spanish, because people who are strong readers in their native language have an easier time picking up a secondary language.
With titles for every reading age, interest, and language, magazines and comics are the most powerful literacy engines on the planet. Read this inspiring story told by Miss Texas contestant Kimberly Ferguson, who set out to deliver hundreds of magazines to eager readers and is already achieving 10x her goal. We are blessed by literacy ambassadors like Kimberly. 

Street Youth Ministry founder Terry Cole with John who told me he loves to read whatever he can.
The University of Texas motto is Disciplina praesidium civitatis. A cultivated mind is the guardian genius of democracy.

 
As we work towards our goals for this year, we like to look back at what we accomplished last year. MagazineLiteracy saw fantastic growth in outreach in 2016, having donated nearly 122,000 magazines to agencies around the world.
We donate to mentoring and job training programs, food pantries, shelters, community centers, and foster care.

We’ve established that magazines are enormously powerful for literacy, because there are titles for every reading age, interest, and language. This table shows where English, Spanish, and French language is spoken by territory, indicating a long list of places around the world where, with literacy need identified, and an invitation, we can have an impact. Our ultimate goal is to make reading materials available in all native or first languages, but we have to start somewhere. We have excellent access to English and Spanish language magazines in the U.S. and potentially good access to French language magazines in the U.S. and especially Canada. We’ve had good success partnering with international relief organizations, company sponsors, and travelers to get our magazine literacy materials to readers overseas. We’ve already delivered magazines to the Arctic, Jamaica, Croatia, Uganda, and Honduras. We are seeking publishing and humanitarian partners to expand our literacy reach. Join us. Tell the world.
See table of English, Spanish, and French language by territory