AlabamaCBF coordinator Mart Gray loads donated children’s book from the Passport Inc. warehouse in Birmingham to take to Sowing Seeds of Hope, the Partners in Hope initiative in Perry County, Ala.

ATLANTA – This summer, teenagers gave to children. They gave their favorite children’s books – Sesame Street, the Berenstain Bears and others that brought dinosaurs or airplanes to life on pages – to children who might not have their own book.

Campers at Passport – a Cooperative Baptist Fellowship partner that sponsors missions-oriented summer camps – gave Partners in Hope, the Fellowship’s rural poverty initiative, more than 20,000 books to be distributed among some of the poorest areas in the United States. They called the project Books of Hope because it addressed literacy problems, one of the root causes of poverty.

"These books offer us a tangible way to respond to systemic poverty," said Colleen Burroughs, executive vice president of Passport Inc.

Books of Hope resulted from a December 2003 conversation between Burroughs and Carol Prevost, literacy and educational resources adviser for Partners in Hope. Prevost, a retired schoolteacher, had a dream for every child to own his or her own book, and Burroughs already had a Birmingham, Ala., warehouse packed with 2,000 books campers had collected in previous summers.

Through Books of Hope, teenagers at Passport camps partnered with Partners in Hope, the Fellowship’s rural poverty initiative, to provide books for children in rural areas.

The call for children’s books was publicized in the leader’s guide sent to all participating churches prior to camp. When youth arrived at camps in Florida, North Carolina and Kentucky, they brought some of their favorite children’s books with them.

"The churches that come never cease to amaze me in their willingness to participate creatively in missions. When we make the need known, they faithfully show up with boxes of great books," Burroughs said.

Burroughs said the project was "phenomenally successful," with the collected books valuing $60,000. The response was so overwhelming that when Spalding University in Louisville, Ky., picked up 2,000 books, "the truck was plumb full," said Kentucky Baptist Fellowship Coordinator John Lepper.

The books will be distributed to rural Appalachia areas of Kentucky, the delta region of Mississippi and through Sowing Seeds of Hope in Alabama’s Perry County. AlabamaCBF coordinator Mart Gray anticipated delivering books by December and said distribution will be networked through local libraries, school systems and the Head Start program.

While some books will be given to individual children, others will become part of local church book fairs or local libraries. Prevost’s other ideas for distribution included giving baby books as gifts to newborns at local hospitals and placing books in doctors’ offices or waiting rooms in poor areas.

Books of Hope is a preventative measure to literacy problems among rural area children, especially pre-kindergarteners, Prevost said. "If they have a book in their home, reading is contagious," she said.

CBF is a fellowship of Baptist Christians and churches who share a passion for the Great Commission and a commitment to Baptist principles of faith and practice. The Fellowship’s mission is to serve Christians and churches as they discover and fulfill their God-given mission.