Donating 570 books to charity is already a worthy accomplishment for a book drive. But imagine your surprise if that donation was matched 175 times over.
That’s what happened recently to 8-year-old identical twin brothers Tanner and Trevor Barr, who organized a book drive with the goal of 1,600 books. After they spent three weeks collecting 570 books from friends and their local community, they were surprised by Naren Aryal, CEO of Mascot Books in Herndon, who video-chatted with them to let them know his company was going to donate 100,000 books to their cause.
The donation was part of an initiative to help schools, organizations and families in need that was a corporate collaboration by the hybrid publishing company, which publishes fiction, nonfiction, cookbooks and children’s titles, and KushCo Holdings, Inc., a provider of ancillary products and services to the legal cannabis and CBD industries.
“We were inspired by Tanner and Trevor’s dedication to raising books for children and families in distressed financial circumstances [and] we wanted to help and reward them for their hard work by donating every single book that we could from our warehouse,” Aryal says. “We strongly believe that books are foundational to children’s development and education and therefore should be accessible to all of them regardless of their economic status, [and] we hope this donation will encourage, inspire and promote literacy.”
The boys said they were blown away by the donation and were so surprised and happy they ran around the house jumping for joy before calling their entire family to tell them the amazing news. “We love to read all types of books and this means so much to us to donate 100,000 books to kids to help with their education,” they said via email. “We are always looking for ways to make a positive difference in the world and this exceeded our expectations–thank you Naren and team Mascot!” Aryal invited them to the warehouse to give them a glimpse of the number of books that would be getting into the hands of children and families.
The third-graders are philanthropists at heart, who have participated in several children’s cancer runs and fundraisers, donated birthday toys to children’s hospitals, help feed and create hygiene kits for the homeless and participate in local events like beach and trail clean ups. In their spare time they enjoy playing baseball and swimming and making videos on YouTube.
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