by Kathrin Walter
Continue reading “New Jersey teens opt to spend a Friday night in to promote magazine literacy cause”…this is a great service opportunity to help people less fortunate who love to read and those who are just learning.
Boy Scout earns Eagle Rank by Pioneering Magazine Recycling for Literacy
by Kathrin Walter
Continue reading “Boy Scout earns Eagle Rank by Pioneering Magazine Recycling for Literacy”I was very compelled by the idea of promoting literacy since I have always loved reading since a young age and I have learned so much from books, newspapers, and magazines, so I know the impact that literacy can have on one’s life.
Print magazines for real-time reader engagement
The number one question I get about MagazineLiteracy.org relates to the future of print magazines. In his interview with Samir Husni, Chris Johns, Editor in Chief of National Geographic makes a timeless and very powerful statement about how print magazines maximize real-time reader engagement – arguably more so than digital formats, which is just to say they are complimentary.
Incubating magazine literacy at Bendyworks
We’ve just moved in to a fabulous incubation space at Bendyworks, an agile technology juggernaut in Madison, WI.
The move empowers MagazineLiteracy.org to tap the enormous spirit of the Madison community to assemble a team charged to grow and improve our operations and service to hundreds of grassroots volunteers on the ground in communities across the U.S. Meeting literacy needs at the community level with all-volunteer teams is and always will be our bedrock – but these literacy champions need support to learn and to grow so they and we can meet our full literacy promise.
The collaborative space at Bendyworks allows us to be nimble and to keep operations modest and highly leveraged, while fostering our strength and continuity. We’ve already kicked off 2013 with an incredible team of interns from the nearby University of Wisconsin and now, thanks to the Bendyworks’ co-working space, we are embedded in the rich, cultural, and technological vibe of the Madison community – ready to serve magazine literacy needs from coast to coast.
Today, creative/technical workers can literally live and work anywhere. A large number of folks choose to work in Madison and either freelance or work remotely for companies on the east or west coast. Bendyworks’ dedicated desk co-working gives them the opportunity to talk and interact with humans rather than just their cats.
– Jim Remsik, Bendyworks
Onward!
Literacy takes flight in New Jersey with Boy Scout Eagle Project
Surya has been organizing a very successful Magazine Harvest as his Boy Scout Eagle Project in New Jersey – collecting over 1,200 magazines for new readers. The magazines are being sorted, labeled, and bundled in USPS flat rate boxes for delivery to new readers. Surya and his team are creating a list of the magazines in each bundle, which are organized by topic for easy selection by literacy programs.
Continue reading “Literacy takes flight in New Jersey with Boy Scout Eagle Project”Magazines from dentists make new readers smile
My lifelong love for magazines started with reading Highlights at the dentist office – and I know I’m not alone in that experience. To this day, I can’t pass a Highlights without picking it up to look for hidden pictures. So reading magazines in the dentist office is the seed that grew to become MagazineLiteracy.org and dentists continue to receive and share so many wonderful magazines in their waiting areas with their patients. Let’s tap this enormous potential – putting a smile on the face of new readers, while your dentist brightens yours.
Organized literacy efforts among health professionals are not unprecedented. For example, Reach out and Read is an amazing program empowered by pediatric physicians. Dental offices receive many wonderful magazines each month to share with readers in their waiting rooms and cycle through them as new issues come in. We know from working with many dentist that they love the idea of giving the magazines a new life by sending them to our literacy programs.
Whether you are a dentist or a patient – contact us to help grow our “Make Readers Smile” project. Every dentist can participate – strengthening the breadth and depth of our magazine literacy supply chain. In addition to supplying their own magazines, the visibility can encourage patients to be involved too – perhaps by recycling their own magazines to new readers and volunteering to build up our local literacy teams.
I’m smiling already!
Harvest magazines at work to recycle to new readers
Here’s a sample email you can send to your colleagues to collect and recycle magazines to new readers. Pack and ship clean, gently read magazines with no torn or cut covers or pages to us and we’ll deliver them to kids and families in shelters and other literacy programs. It feels good to share the magazines you love and they are very much appreciated and enjoyed. Carefully remove paper and mark out ink mailing labels, and we’ll take care of the rest.
Magazines are great – we love to get them and read them. Please join me in recycling “gently read” magazines to new readers – homeless families… moms and kids in domestic violence shelters… via food pantries… etc.
I’ve set up a collection box for any magazines you’d like to share. Don’t worry about mailing labels – I’ll remove or mark them out with a permanent marker, and MagazineLiteracy.org will cover up the spot with a fresh “gift” label.
Any magazines that a child or adult would enjoy are needed – as long as they are clean with no torn or cut covers or pages, or water or moisture damage.
Thanks for helping to feed families hungry to read.
Beautiful Maggie the Literacy Bee is born today!
MAGnificent Maggie the Literacy Bee joins Max to promote our magazine recycling to new readers. Maggie and Max were created by a most talented children’s illustrator, Aja Mulford. We are looking forward to buzzing around with them to tell our stories and to inspire people and businesses to recycle magazines to moms, kids, and families who love to read them.
Max hams it up for MagazineLiteracy.org
Just hours old, Max the Literacy Bee is already buzzing around town to encourage people everywhere to recycle their magazines to new readers. This is another great illustration by the incredibly talented Aja Mulford. We are so appreciative of her beautiful work.
Introducing Max the Literacy Bee!
We are so thankful for the wonderful illustration work done by the very talented Aja Mulford to bring Max to life to represent and promote our magazine recycling to new readers.
Aligning the planets for Magazine Literacy on (EARTH) Day
We are aligning the planets for our (EARTH) Day magazine recycling juggernaut – sharing magazines with new readers.
(MERCURY) – get the word out to friends
(VENUS) – share your love of magazines
(MARS) – marshal troops and treasure
(JUPITER) – go big!
Join us!
Crowdsourcing magazine literacy
We are exploring ways to crowdsource components of our literacy work to broaden and deepen our community impact. We are building a simple, global, assembly line process for the collection, sorting, and delivery of new and gently read magazines to new readers – children and moms in homeless and domestic violence shelters, foster care, mentoring, and job training programs. Simple, elegant solutions executed by masses of hands, hearts, and minds will ease the replication of our ideas and the engagement of our stakeholders. The labor and information intensive tasks that help to describe our magazine inventory for our literacy agents can be broken down into bite-size pieces for scores of volunteers to add-value and then re-assembled into our global literacy marketplace for consumption by literacy programs and their clients. For example, the better job we do describing our magazines and their content, the easier it will be for literacy programs to request specific items and bundles to meet the reading needs and interests of their own clients. This will improve the quality of matches between available reading materials and literacy needs, increasing the contribution of our combined effort, while reducing waste and inefficiency where resources are already scarce.
Organize a food and magazine drive to get food and reading materials into homes to feed hungry minds and bodies.
We have had very good success finding new readers for the magazines we love to share at shelters and food pantries. Also, there are programs that support homeless teens in every school district, so that’s another great place to start. It’s important for programs to know that you will be taking care to bring good quality, gently read magazines to them. One idea to try is a magazine drive at a supermarket or book store – like a food drive, but collecting magazines to feed families hungry to read. Another idea is to conduct a combined food drive and magazine drive – so feeding hungry bodies and minds. This is especially timely as summer approaches and kids are out of school and away from food and learning resources. 
When a family goes to a food pantry to receive a bag of groceries, there would also be wonderful magazines inside, which helps to get reading materials into homes. Food pantries will appreciate the groceries, but also want to help families meet other basic needs to help families escape economic and food insecurity.
Post our banner ads on your web site and blog
A very talented and generous group of crowdSPRING creatives have designed and delivered a full portfolio of online advertising to promote MagazineLiteracy.org.
Help us connect to supporters and literacy leaders by posting these ads on your web site. Contact us to get the full portfolio of banner ad sizes. Link ads to http://magazineliteracy.org
Thank you.
MagHarvest – Organize a supermarket food and magazine drive
This article explains how to organize a combined food and magazine drive for your local food pantry to feed hungry bodies and minds. This is especially important as summer approaches, when the need for food and learning increases, because children are out of school, and pantry shelves go empty. Read on and volunteer today.
Continue reading “MagHarvest – Organize a supermarket food and magazine drive”Rowan University "Spring Cleaning" recycles magazines to new readers for Earth Week
Help us to promote and grow this wonderful seed planted by Ad Dynamics – the student run ad agency at Rowan University in NJ… during an Earth Week “spring cleaning” event, students recycled over 100 magazines to new readers via Volunteers of America. The Ad Dynamics team also documented how to organize a Spring Cleaning event, including posters, brochures, presentations, and even a video.
How to organize a Magazine Recycling event
Spring Cleaning – Magazine Harvest Poster
Hundreds of magazines recycled to new readers in Arizona shelter
Kudos to Arizona State University student Susie Satta who collected, sorted, and delivered hundreds of great magazines to new readers at a nearby shelter. It’s wonderful to share favorite magazines with others who greatly appreciate them and enjoy them. Congratulations Susie – your passion is an inspiration!
Also, a big thank you to Nicole Sivilli – an amazing New Jersey High School student who volunteers her spare time to assist with our literacy database management. Nicole is developing a nationwide list of potential drop-off locations for recycled magazines. The database is utilized to focus our volunteer recruitment efforts. That focus enabled us to connect with Susie in Arizona and many other volunteers around the country who are willing to manage local magazine collection and distribution.
Together – we are changing the world – one magazine at at time!
Cornell team harvests three bins of magazines for new readers
Helene Beauchemin at Cornell University reports that their Magazine Harvest has yielded three bins of magazines for recycling to new readers in shelters and literacy programs. Next, the magazines will be sorted and packaged up for delivery. In addition to this project, Helene has helped to found and manage our Magazine Literacy Ambassador program and Facebook page. Great work team!
Kudos to Katie Simmons – a Literacy Beacon in Boston
Katie Simmons has been a long-time MagazineLiteracy.org champion in the Boston area, collecting and delivering thousands of magazines to hundreds of children and families in shelters and literacy programs. She gives every bit of heart and soul delivering magazines out of the back of her well-traveled jeep. At the same time, she takes a personal interest in each individual matching wonderful magazines to wonderful children and moms, and working closely with agencies to understand their needs. She is a bright light – a beacon among beacons – for our magazine literacy work that burns around the clock. Thank you Katie for feeding so many the knowledge and the joy that magazines deliver.
Continuous improvement toward a sustainable magazine literacy supply chain
The idea of recycling magazines to new readers is simple with few steps. Sharing our magazines with others, especially children and families who have little else in homeless and domestic violence shelters, and in bags of groceries from food pantries, resonates well with consumers and puts reading materials into the homes and hands of new readers who need them most.
Continue reading “Continuous improvement toward a sustainable magazine literacy supply chain”Bags of Mags – launch a Magazine Harvest in your office or school
It’s the harvest season. Your clean, gently read, recycled magazines can feed children and families hungry to read year-round – delivered to neighbors in homeless and domestic violence shelters and to families in bags of groceries from food pantries. It’s so easy to organize a magazine collection in your office or school. We know people greatly appreciate receiving the magazines. It’s a great way to get much-needed reading materials into homes, and into the hands of children and families.
- Place collection bins in your office or school.
- Ask for clean, gently read magazines – with covers intact – no cuts or tears (you or we can mark out mailing address labels).
- Send your magazines to us.
- Need bins? Contact us
If you love Whole Foods, Magazines, and Literacy – we need you
Magazine Harvest gets clean, gently read magazines to children, moms, and teens in homeless and domestic violence shelters and via grocery bags from food pantries.
We are on a mission to set up a magazine collection bin in every Whole Foods store and need your help.
Volunteer as a Magazine Literacy Ambassador to create or join a team to organize your Whole Foods store. Once a month, your team will sort, package, and deliver your magazines to nearby shelters and other literacy programs.
crowdSPRING creatives deliver banner results
A very talented and generous group of crowdSPRING creatives have designed and delivered a full portfolio of online advertising to promote MagazineLiteracy.org. Display these wonderful ads will help us to fill our magazine literacy pipeline.
Tell us your stories: Kibble and People mag feed a homeless kitten and neighbor
When I pulled into the grocery store parking lot today, I drove by a homeless women sitting on the curb – a too common sight. She had some donated bags of groceries at her side, so there was some hopefulness in that.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a kitten and when I looked back in my side-view mirror, the kitten was jumping up playfully to catch the woman’s attention. Anyone who has a pet cat or dog knows their unconditional love. I was glad that kitten and neighbor had each other’s company and backs.
I’m no stranger to food drives, having stood in front of supermarkets on many occasions over the past 25 years to collect groceries for nearby food pantries. At MagazineLiteracy.org, we’d like to explore the same idea to harvest magazines – gleaned by shoppers from the newsstand and dropped in collection bins to feed children and families hungry to read.
That morning I bought some organic Newman’s Own cat food and a toy for the kitten. I stopped by the newsstand to find a Cat Fancy magazine, which was not available, and I purchased a copy of People magazine. When I delivered the food and the toy for the kitten, the woman was very pleased. When I gave her the People magazine, she was pleasantly surprised.
That grocery store sold some extra cat food and an extra magazine that day. Giving the magazine gift lifted the spirits of two neighbors – hers and mine.
Tell us your stories about changing lives of children and families in your community – one favorite magazine at a time.
Consumer mags feed mentoring and job training programs
MagazineLiteracy.org has expanded its impact beyond children’s magazines by matching support from enthusiasts to meet literacy needs in like-mined mentoring and job training programs.
For example, with the support of boating enthusiasts, WoodenBoat is targeted to support the literacy goals of at-risk youth in boat building programs like Rocking the Boat in New York City.
With the support of foodies, Food Network and other culinary magazines are provided to enrollees in food service job training programs like CHEFS in San Francisco, which provides job training for homeless individuals and d.c. central kitchen in Washington, DC. Program leads explain that the magazines help to inspire chefs-in-training, especially when it comes to recipes and food presentation, which is so important for developing top-notch professional skills.
Early success, with sponsorship from Prince Sports put Tennis magazine into the hands of 200+ children enrolled in Boston’s Tenacity after-school program.
If you love reading O, the Oprah Magazine, Seventeen, or Redbook magazines, then support sharing them with teens and moms in homeless and domestic violence shelters.
Stretch the imagination and support a bond around mutual interests for youth in mentoring programs with Wired magazines.
Our mission is to get new and recycled magazines into the hands, hearts, and homes of at-risk children, teens, and adults who want to learn and love to read them. Help us change the world – one magazine at a time.