HARTFORD, Conn — "Representation Matters" is a sentiment that one local Girl Scout uses to unite the community to make Hartford Public School libraries more diverse and inclusive, one book at a time.
From Daisy to Senior status, Rhaili-Em Lowe has earned almost every Girl Scout badge and award you can think of. But now, she is going after the biggest one yet.
"Because I'm a Senior, I'm going to be able to achieve my Gold Award, and it can be any project I want it to be," explained Lowe.
Between her passion for reading and her love for her school, she said the project idea was a no-brainer.
"I wanted to make sure that Hartford students had an opportunity to have books by authors of color," explained Lowe. "So, I decided to collect books from anyone who would be able to donate to me."
Lowe set out to collect more than 100 books for students ages 6-12 for various Hartford school libraries, and she said the project effort is called "Project Diverse Books."
"We've been going at this for quite some time, several months," said Lowe.
To help pull this off, Lowe said it would take a village.
This is why The Key Bookstore in Hartford hopped in to help Lowe create an online booklist to make purchasing books for this project easy.
"That way, people have the most seamless time buying books from the bookstore and feeling what that's like actually to have the experience of buying from a diverse and totally independent bookstore," explained Khamani Harrison, the Key Bookstore owner.
Project Divers Book's efforts have also caught the attention of other organizations like ShopBlackCT.
"This was a project that really speaks to equity and diversity, and inclusion and representation," explained Yvette Young of ShopBlackCT. "So I felt like it was ideal for us at ShopBlackCT to support this initiative."
Young said since the beginning, they've helped get the word out about Lowes' project. However, she said the most important message they hope people take away is diversity and representation matter.
"When you have young people who are willing to put action behind their words and facilitate a project like this, I think as adults, we should be motivated by that inspired by that and do everything we possibly can to support a project like this," passionately explained Young.
An anonymous donor through ShopBlackCT will match the first 50 book purchases through the end of February.
Click here if you would like to donate to Project Diverse Books.
Raquel Harrington is the race and culture reporter at FOX61 News. She can be reached at rharrington@fox61.com. Follow her on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
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