CLEVELAND — You may have seen her cruising around town in her bookmobile, sharing her passion for literacy with the Cleveland community.
Chrishawndra Matthews is the founder of "Literacy in the H.O.O.D." She believes in her mission - investing in young minds, one book at a time.
Since 2017, her Cleveland-based non-profit thrives from book donations in an effort to build a culture of reading in the city's low-income communities.
This week, Chrishawndra's basement flooded with a couple of inches of water where she stores nearly 2,500 of those books. Now, most of them are damaged.
"I lost a lot of books and materials I use in the inner city," she explained. "But it's really not abo,ut me. I know my tagline is 'Invest in young minds, one book at a time' so the books are bigger than me and I can tell when I meet the children, who's reading and who's not. So me just pulling up and being able to provide books is my piece of contributing to the pot, so when I went down and saw what was destroyed, it felt like a set back."
There is some good news, however.
Organizations like the United Black Fund have already stepped up to help Literacy in the H.O.O.D. by donating $1,000 towards helping Chrishawndra replace those damaged books.
But she's asking for your help, too. If you'd like to donate for Literacy in the H.O.O.D., click here.