3,200 Books and 1 High School Student

Some may say that one person may not make a difference in the world, but 16-year-old Redlands High School Junior Anant Pai proved this wrong by collecting 3,200 books from his local community to give to underprivileged students in a span of only 5 weeks. Pai was inspired to give back to the community after coming across the Inland Empire Children’s Book Project started by rotary members in San Bernardino. The Book Project is based on a model in Northern California that collects books and re-distributes them to underprivileged kids in the area. The official opening day of the Inland Empire Children's Book Project is in August. Pai states, “As I explored more, I became aware that growing up in Redlands, I wasn’t exposed to poverty in areas like San Bernardino and India, and I thought a book drive would contribute to illiteracy and contribute to a bigger cause. I’ve been thinking about it for awhile and I figured people would be willing to help. Everyone was really supportive, the club members, teachers, and school adviser, Mary Bruton.” Pai continued, “My grandfather inspires me, because he lived in India, he was the Director of the International Rotary, he wanted to help people with problems, and he became successful after starting the Manipal Institute of Technology. He aimed to help other people who were impoverished through his actions in Rotary.” Pai started the Southern California Chapter of Cultures for Youth at his high school, a club based on a non-profit high school group that was began in 2005 by a high school student in Illinois. The Redlands High School branch currently has 50-60 members; 25-30 who are active. Pai says, “Cultures for Youth deals with promoting cultural presentation and volunteer activities on subjects from Buddhism, Chinese New Year, Bollywood, and Judaism,” the goal is to raise cultural awareness in the community. Pai and the Cultures for Youth club organized a book drive at the end of January that continued through February 28th. In that period, they gathered 3,200 books from the surrounding community. At school, he sent emails to teachers and asking classes to help donate books; he put a donation bag in each classroom. As an incentive, the class who gathered the most books would receive a pizza party sponsored by the club. All together 1,400 books were donated during the school book drive. In the community, Pai sent out emails and spoke to family and friends about donating books that were sitting on shelves gathering dust. He picked the books up from people’s homes or had the books dropped off at his home. Pai’s mother, Anita Pai shared, “I’m proud of him and we’re supportive of him, we help him. I’m really happy he can handle everything, all the family and friends have been helping, he has great support.” She said, “he’s doing a great job, so far, he started a club, now this book project. I think what opened his eyes is he worked in an orphanage in India. He got to work with kids, and he asked them at Christmas time what did they want? These kids are not exposed to anything and only go out once a month on an outing.” Pai and his club members are getting ready to hold presentations on Native American Cultures, and the Religion of Islam. Pai says, “there is so much I want to do and so much I want to accomplish.” The donated books Pai collected from the community will be assisting the Inland Empire Children’s Book Project and will be going to underprivileged schools through San Bernardino.