KANSAS CITY, MO — Students from Lincoln College Preparatory Academy in Kansas City, Missouri, are working on a project that is one for the books.
“It all goes back to humans helping humans, especially the ones that are disadvantaged,” Elizabeth Snyder, a senior at Lincoln College Preparatory Academy, said.
The project started after Snyder wanted to stop perfectly good literature from being dumped outside her school's dumpster.
“I saw a few students bringing the carts out to the dumpster starting at like the third floor, and I saw the carts, and I immediately went to the principal's office and asked her if we could grab some gloves and go through the dumpster," Snyder said.
Snyder gathered a few friends to help Manuel Reyes and Victor Loma, who discovered two to three thousand books that were piled in their school's dumpster.
“A few of the books, they were new, like there was some in the curriculum two to three years and they just got out of the curriculum,” Reyes, a senior at Lincoln College Preparatory Academy said.
However, the teens started the process of restoring them by not judging these book by their covers, but by the damage they received from siting in the dumpster.
“Some already had water damage and stuff, others had mouse droppings," Loma, a senior at Lincoln College Preparatory said. "So we had to be really careful in picking up all the good books, and the good books that we did pick out, they are in really good shape."
Snyder reflected on what restoring the books could mean for the community.
“Finding a new way to handle these books in a way that doesn’t disrespect them, by throwing them away, that is what is essential for the community because that’ll help the community grow,” Snyder said.
Now as these teens work to restore the books they found, they’re hoping to start a new chapter not only for their school, but for their community when it comes to disposing of books at the end of the school year.
“It definitely puts a smile on my face to see that we have done something good here and I hope that we can possibly continue it in the future somehow," Loma said. "We can probably figure [it] out, we're smart I guess."
The teens are now working to donate them across the Kansas City area to libraries, nursing homes, hospitals and more.
“At the end of the day, if even one person has so much joy from one of these books, [it's a] mission accomplished,” Snyder said.
KSHB 41 News reached out to the Kansas City Public Schools District for comment on the students efforts, but no one was available for comment as the district is on Spring Break.
