A student-run book drive has grown into a literacy nonprofit with programs spanning the United States and Africa. BelieveNBooks, founded by Natasha Agarwal in 2021, has distributed 250,000 books to children in need and reached 50,000 children, she told PW. Those figures describe more than the reach of a series of donation drives: they show how Agarwal has built a mix of book distribution and early learning programs around a problem she encountered in her own community. The organization’s work now includes classroom and home reading materials, digital read-alouds, and books printed for distribution in African countries.
Agarwal started the organization as an eighth grader near Naples, Fla., during the pandemic. While taking classes online, she found comfort in books, even as news reports highlighted how low-income students lacked reliable access to remote schooling and reading materials. That contrast gave her a local problem to act on: students were expected to learn at home, but many families didn’t have dependable access to the tools that could support that learning. She organized a donation drive for a local subsidized preschool, turning concern about unequal access into a practical first step.
From book donations to early learning
The first drive brought enough community support to connect Agarwal with leaders at other education groups. She kept collecting new and gently used books, with Florida Gulf Coast University’s service-learning program helping with deliveries, storage, and inventory. Those logistics matter: a book drive can attract donations quickly, but receiving, sorting, storing, and getting books to children takes ongoing coordination. The premise, she said, was that a book someone had finished could still “open doors for kids in need.”
As the drives expanded, Agarwal saw that donated books alone didn’t always meet the needs of families who spoke languages other than English. A book can be available and still be difficult for a child to use if the household doesn’t have the language support or reading practice to make it accessible. In ninth grade, she started Pageturner, a digital learning program that pairs books with YouTube read-aloud videos made by Agarwal and other high school students. The format gives children a way to follow along with a story while hearing it read aloud, and gives families another tool to use at home.
BelieveNBooks typically gives each preschooler a backpack of books to encourage English practice at home and help prepare children for kindergarten. That approach connects book access with a specific transition in a child’s education: the move from preschool into a classroom where reading and language skills will be expected. If you're working in this space, the distinction matters. Getting books into a home is a starting point; helping children and caregivers use them is what gives the distribution a clearer learning purpose.
The videos feature familiar early-reader titles, including the Pete the Cat and Clifford series. The organization has permission to record the read-alouds, and its nonprofit status gives it access to bulk purchasing discounts from Scholastic and First Book. Those arrangements help make the materials possible, while the use of known titles gives young readers a familiar entry point. The model still depends on adults and student volunteers to select, distribute, and present the books in ways that fit the children they’re meant to reach. A practical mix of access and guidance.
Expanding the work
Agarwal is recruiting young people across the country to serve as BelieveNBooks ambassadors. That strategy could extend the organization’s reach through people who understand their own schools and communities, though it also makes local coordination central to the work. In Florida, the My Very Own Book initiative aims to reach more than 6,500 preschoolers in eight counties. The stated target suggests a broader effort than the original local drive, but reaching children across multiple counties requires partnerships and delivery systems that can work beyond one school or neighborhood.
She has also written and self-published Tales of African Women Trailblazers, an informational book for young readers. BelieveNBooks has donated 10,000 copies in countries including Ghana, Kenya, and Rwanda. The project extends the organization’s work from distributing existing titles to creating a book with a particular subject and audience in mind. Agarwal said local printing and distribution help avoid high shipping costs, a useful reminder that the expense of moving books can shape what a literacy program can deliver across borders. She hopes to develop a companion book focused on countries in South America.
Now a sophomore at the University of Pennsylvania, Agarwal organizes Philadelphia school book drives to help children build home libraries. Her local partners include Read by 4th, Tree House Books, Philly Book Bank, and Penn’s Netter Center for Community Partnerships. These relationships place her work alongside organizations already active in the city, which can help connect drives with schools and children who need books. They also show that BelieveNBooks’ growth isn’t only a matter of adding more locations; it depends on building ties with groups that know how local programs operate.
What the next stage will test
She’s balancing the nonprofit with college coursework and is considering a major in law and society, as well as a future in public service or nonprofit work. For now, BelieveNBooks’ next stage rests on extending its programs through student ambassadors and local partnerships, while keeping books and early learning materials within children’s reach. This is more significant than it looks: the organization’s reach depends on turning youthful interest into repeatable work, with the collection, delivery, and learning support all handled well enough to serve children consistently.
And yet, scale alone won’t show whether the model is working for families. The figures Agarwal shared establish how many books have been distributed and children reached; the programs described here also raise a more practical question about what happens after a book arrives. Do children have opportunities to read it, and can families use the materials in ways that support early learning? Those questions apply broadly to literacy efforts that pair donated books with instruction or reading activities. What this means for you, as a reader, is that the value of this model lies in the connection between access and use, not in the donation count by itself.
BelieveNBooks has grown from one student’s response to a gap she saw during remote schooling into a set of programs with different audiences and delivery methods. Its future will depend on whether those efforts can keep their local connections as they reach more children. That’s the work ahead.
Read the first profile in this series, about Quade Kelley and his organization, Reading Athlete.
