To celebrate International Literacy Day, an event that occurs on September 8th each year, and the start of the new school year, the Whole Foods Markets in Princeton New Jersey and Brighton, near Boston Massachusetts, will join with MagazineLiteracy.org to kick-off the KinderHarvest magazine recycling drive for literacy. These Whole Foods Market locations are the first in the nation to rollout a KinderHarvest magazine recycling drive year-round for children and families learning to read. Wooden harvest bins will be placed in the stores to collect the recycled magazines from consumers, which will be given to at-risk children and families in nearby homeless and domestic violence shelters, and delivered to families in grocery bags at food pantries.
By collecting magazines from those who love to read them and sending them to new readers, the effort combines a concern for environmental issues with a concern for literacy that is resonating with consumers and business owners alike.
KinderHarvest, the first effort of its kind, is like food gleaning, a practice that is thousands of years old, where crops left in the field are gathered by humanitarians to feed hungry people. Except, this harvest gleans magazines that would have ended up at the curb to feed children and families hungry to read and succeed, recycling the magazines we all love to meet local literacy needs. KinderHarvest combines the three R’s of education with the three R’s of recycling to promote the three R’s of magazine literacy: Read, Rescue, and Reuse.