Often I use this space to share big numbers about how many schools, teachers, and students we’re sharing the gift of reading with. I’m proud of the program and how big an impact our team is making in real lives of real teachers that plays out in the lives and futures of so many kids. The school year started in March, so we’re 9-weeks into a new school year and the team is hard at work with 52 teachers, in 5 schools, working with 1500 students. We set up 38 mini-libraries this year—many thanks to many of you!

Last week I helped our team out at an all-girls school, Murillo, where there are more than 600 girls from first to sixth grade. My daughter, Adileen, is now 9 years old and in fourth grade, and she has just this year fallen in love with reading on her own (she’s been an avid audio-book listener since she was 3 haha). I couldn’t help but pay special attention to the fourth grade classroom. My job was to observe the classroom teacher put into practice the month’s reading strategy (expanding vocabulary) with a session that she developed on her own. She read “El Hombre Mosca” to the class—Fly Guy. When she finished it, the whole class erupted in a chant, “One more time, one more time!” They had just listened to the whole book, and wanted to hear it again.

Then the teacher surprised them: “You can check this book out to read here at school any time.”

Their eyes got wide, the class made a collective gasp, and different girls whispered, “¿En serio?” Ivana said: “¡No te creo!” They couldn’t believe they would have access to read a book that was so fun.

Come on.

How incredible is that? We get to be in this incredibly special position so that Ivana, who has never held a fun book in her hands, gets to—for the very first time. Not only that, but we’re working with Ivana’s teacher so that these girls, as well as her future students, have a better chance to understand what they read.

This year’s libraries were made possible by some individuals and groups who have been contributing to CUDA for years. Others of you saw my Instagram post back in December and immediately made a donation for one, three, or five libraries (look at the pictures, there’s even a plaque that reads “Amigos en Instagram”). There was a Bible class at Cedar Lane that made some special donations to contribute two mini-libraries. There were several family members of Katie’s who gave libraries. Others were friends who contributed a library, or combined with someone else to. There was even an elementary school in Shelbyville, TN who took up the vision and made a whole donation campaign, and the families there donated enough to fund two entire mini-libraries in the schools!

I am blown away by the generosity, and honored to get to witness to the collective goodness that is possible, even when we’re so far away from each other.

Thank you for being a part of this. Thank you for praying for this. We have a long way to go and development is slow and arduous work. It is so, so special.