13-year-old Maria Keller has collected and sent over a million books to children all over the world.
Keller, who founded her own nonprofit organization, Read Indeed, at the age of 8, has made it a life goal to spread literacy to children who don’t have the luxury of the Internet or libraries. Her personal love for books, according to Yahoo, caused her book campaign to begin when her mother told her that many children do not have access to storybooks.
According to the Huffington Post, Keller distributes book to hospitals, schools and other nonprofit groups. She initially wanted to send out a million books by the time she was 18, but reached her goal much sooner.
The now 8th-grader has managed to send out an outstanding total of 1,032,067 books, valued around $4,000,000. Keller will be honored with the “Outstanding National or Global Service by a Young American” award at the National Award Ceremony in NYC in March.
Read Indeed has been able to get books to children in 30 states in the US and 13 countries all over the world. Keller’s goal, however, remains much bigger, as she hopes to reach every state and every country.