This charity has only one mission: delivering children’s books to impoverished libraries. The mission stems from the experiences of the late Meta L. Reid. Meta died at the young age of 57. She was a children’s librarian, a scientist, an author, and a loving and loved wife and mother to Larry and Lawrence (respectively, husband and son). Meta enjoyed traveling, never missing a destination’s library and its children’s room. She found it terrible that some communities had very limited or no books for their children and vowed to do something about that. During a trip to Cuba, Meta brought along a few children’s books as gifts in our “good will” tour. The books were eventually given to a grade school. When the school’s teacher handed the books to the children, the children handled the books with reverence and obvious joy. Noticing the children’s joy when merely getting an opportunity to read a book, the travel agency arranging our trip (International Expeditions, and its staff particularly Steve Cox and Emily Harley) encouraged other travelers to supply one or two children’s books for Cuban libraries. As a consequence of those events, there has been a sustained delivery of a small number of children’s books to impoverished libraries in Cuba. Meta was encouraged by the experience. Everyone involved seemed happier for the experience; particularly, of course, the children.

Secret Garden by Mark Lundeen

Little Sisters by Mark Lundeen

When Meta became fatally ill, she was working toward her goal of providing books for children by way of libraries that apparently could not afford them. To honor her goal, Larry and Lawrence decided to establish this charity. We do this not merely to honor Meta, but also to make real the long term beneficial effects of having books available for children. Children who do not have access to decent books are seriously disadvantaged. Public libraries are the means of providing books to children who cannot afford them.

Classics by George Lundeen

In keeping with Meta’s vision of what might be accomplishable with limited resources, our goal is to service a few libraries at a time. We will contact a responsible person of a library, provide a few books, check on how they are being used, and then mail a few books periodically. When continuously repeated, with even a modest number of books, we believe these small donations will have large positive effects. We will sustain such activity for a prolonged time. We will focus our first donations on libraries visited by Meta, e.g., those in the Dominican Republic, Mexico and Cuba. We are aware that there may be very limited children’s books in some economically depressed areas of the USA and will be alert to make the request contacts.

Turning the Pages by George Lundeen