Title: Be a Changemaker: How to Start Something That Matters
Author: Laurie Ann Thompson
Publisher: Simon Pulse
Pub. Date: September 16, 2014
Genre: YA Nonfiction
Rec. Age Level: 12+
Pages: 240
More by this author: Emmanuel's Dream, My Dog is the Best
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When I was in fifth grade my close friends and I started a lunch time popcorn sale to raise money for our library. Motivated by our desire for more books, especially those with corresponding accelerated reader tests, we came up with a plan. We approached our teachers and principal with our idea: with the help of parent volunteers, we would resurrect the old popcorn machine that had been sitting in a storage closet, create a budget for the supplies, make announcements and posters advertising the lunch time popcorn sales, learn how to (safely) use the machine and package the popcorn, then spend our lunches selling the bag of popcorn to our eager peers.
It's been years and years since that fifth grade year, but I remember helping pick out the books that were added to our collection. I also remember using the popcorn sale as a way to raise $1000 for those affected by the September 11th bombing, which happened my 5th grade year. We were sure that, even though we felt a world away in Michigan, that we could help those in New York. Now, in my 20s, it's so great to look back on that elementary school experience - I'm really proud of my friends and fifth grade self.
Which brings me to Laurie Ann Thompson's Be a Changemaker: How to Start Something That Matters. This wonderful resource is not only filled with tips and guidance about how to start something as small as a lunch time to popcorn sale to improve the library collection to something much, much bigger with an even further reach. Thompson also includes inspiring quotes at the beginning and end of each chapter, as well as profiles on youths who have succeeded in affecting social change.
Though this book might be a bit much to read all in one sitting - there is a lot of information here - it's a great resource to explore a bit at a time and/or refer back to.
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