Essex County Teen Gives 40 Kindle Reading Devices To Homeless … – Maplewood, NJ Patch

ESSEX COUNTY, NJ — Daniel Greenberg, a high school senior in Essex County, has raised $5,500 to promote literacy among homeless children through an organization he founded, REACH (Reading Encourages Achievement, Creativity, and Hope).

With the money raised, Daniel gave 40 backpacks to homeless children, including an Amazon Kindle, an extra charger for the Kindle, and a $45 Amazon gift card.

Greenberg worked with the Family Promise of Essex County Mobile Shelter to promote reading as well.

To raise the money, Greenberg, who lives in Millburn, set up a GoFundMe and also worked with Amazon and Kindle for discounted rates.

Many public school students in the U.S. experienced homelessness at some point during the pandemic, with an impact on their literacy. After learning this, Daniel Greenberg began raising funds to give portable reading access to those students.

When talking about why he chose to focus on this project, Greenberg said, “I created REACH to make sure that homeless children do not fall through the cracks in regards to literacy and reading. I know my time reading as a child helped me become who I am today, and I wanted to help others get the same joy out of reading.”

He added, “I chose to use Kindles rather than books because children at Family Promise move frequently and often have little storage space. One portable reader can contain thousands upon thousands of titles.”

Tia Aery, Executive Director of Family Promise of Essex County, stated, “FPE is very grateful for Daniel’s donation and happy to work with him on such an important task. The children in the FPE Shelter Program don’t typically have the funds to own new technology and will be excited to own a Kindle.”

Daniel will continue this project during his Senior year. To donate to REACH, click here: https://gofund.me/c1e324d5