JOHNSTOWN — MagLiteracy will participate in the Mount Vernon Farmers Market on Public Square on June 1, August 3, September 7, and October 5.
A selection of magazines will be available at no cost in the booth, along with outreach
information for food banks interested in ordering magazines, individuals, or
organizations interested in volunteering or making a donation.
While food banks “feed the hungry,” MagLiteracy “feeds the minds” with literacy. The group’s passion is to create the largest literacy marketplace in the world.
A few years ago, a volunteer delivering magazines and comic books for MagLiteracy
delivered some reading material to a homeless shelter in Boston. The volunteer came
across a young boy who had never been interested in reading. But the boy picked up a magazine from the volunteer’s stack on this particular day.
When the volunteer returned on her next run, the young boy was by the door,
waiting for more things to read. A few weeks later, the volunteer saw the boy reading
to his young sister. This is one of John Mennell’s favorite stories but far from his only
one.
“There are so many stories of how that one book, that one comic, or that one magazine
opened up someone’s eyes to a whole new world,” said Mennell, the founder and
chairman of MagLiteracy. “We’re not just sharing stories; we’re creating them.”
MagLiteracy’s mission
MagLiteracy delivers new and recycled magazines at no cost to at-risk readers in food
pantries, shelters, senior centers, and other organizations needing reading material.
For instance, a trove of cooking magazines was delivered to a shelter and culinary
job training program for trafficked women in Columbus. With help from those
magazines, the women are now learning culinary skills and some basics like math.
“Illiteracy is a root cause of poverty and hunger,” Mennell said. “And when we say
poverty, we’re also referring to poverty of the mind, poverty of the heart. In the same
way Kroger supplies food banks with surplus food, we’re able to give a new life to
reading materials supplied to us by our partners.”
The National Center for Education Statistics reports that as of 2019, one in five
U.S. adults — about 43 million people — possess low literacy skills, defined as the
ability to understand, evaluate, use, and engage with written texts to participate in
society, achieve one’s goals, and develop one’s knowledge and potential.
Magazines and comics are special and untapped for literacy. In fact, two-thirds of U.S. children in poverty live in homes with zero books. So, MagLiteracy set out to share the reading materials that everyone loves to feed children and families hungry to read.
Literacy ends poverty. In the 15th century, with the invention of the printing press by
Johannes Gutenberg people were able to share knowledge more quickly and widely.
Civilization never looked back.
With more than 7,000 print titles in the United States alone, across over 60 categories for every reading age, interest, and language, magazines and comics are the most powerful literacy engines on the planet.
About the Magazine Literacy Bank
The seed for MagLiteracy was planted in 1994 while founder John Mennell was
organizing community hunger relief efforts. MagLiteracy collects new magazines
donated by publishers and printing companies and gently read magazines from consumers, making them available free of charge for at-risk readers in food banks, shelters, senior centers, and other community organizations.
With locations in Ohio, Wisconsin, and Mississippi, its operations — run almost
entirely by volunteers — can reach any part of the United States from the Magazine Literacy Banks and support global needs via humanitarian partnerships as resources allow.
For more information, visit MagLiteracy.org.
Knox Community Hospital proudly supports the vibrant pulse of our community by sponsoring the Life & Culture section on Knox Pages, celebrating the stories and experiences that make our region unique.