New Orleans Book Ownership Project

Mission: The NOLA Book Ownership Project is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization that aspires to Improve literacy in New Orleans area public elementary school students by promoting book ownership.

Why: Aimee Simon St. Cyr taught kindergarten and second grade as a Teach For America 2013 corps member in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. While teaching, she saw the impact of a child learning to read and how happy they were to pick books from the class library to read in school. She thought about an idea where she would send home books that she read in class to her students to help build their literacy and home libraries since most of her students were below the poverty line and could not afford books. From that idea, NOLA BOP was born.

How: NOLA Book Ownership Project provides teacher-recommended books to public elementary school students in the New Orleans, LA region.

In the 2022-2023 school year, we provided one book per trimester to every enrolled K-2 student at Phillis Wheatley Community School (295 books/trimester). 

In 2023-2024, we will provide books to all enrolled students in K-3 grades! We donated 315 books in August 2023.

Thank you to our donors and grantors!

If you are interested in joining our mailing list, please fill out the linked form here!

Books from our Spring 2023 Donation