On a Friday morning in November, dozens of students in the College of Education and Community Innovation are scattered through the aisles of the nonprofit Storehouse of Community Resources on Grand Rapids’ northeast side. Their focus is locked on the countless boxes spread across the Storehouse’s massive warehouse floor, each box brimming with books.
An hour of volunteer work at the nonprofit has granted these prospective teachers their reward — the opportunity to stock their future classrooms with free books.
It’s all thanks to a partnership between Grand Valley’s Michigan Literacy Project and Storehouse that provides thousands of books for the next generation of PK-12 and special education teachers.
Amid the bustling activity, Megan Freudigmann, a CECI faculty member and one of the founders of the Michigan Literacy Project, is enthralled at watching her students comb through the Storehouse’s vast inventory.
“I keep getting shivers when I look down the aisles because I see our students with their stacks of books,” Freudigmann said. “I think about the impact and the lives that will be touched and impacted by these books, and it’s just super exciting.”
While the scene might seem chaotic, Michaela Krull, Storehouse’s member and volunteer director, welcomed the help. Founded eight years ago, the Storehouse provides a connection between product donors and nonprofit organizations or school districts.
“We receive their donations in large quantities, we house it in our warehouse and then our nonprofits and school members basically shop our warehouse like a retail space,” she said.
Think of it as a Costco for school districts and nonprofits across West Michigan, said Krull. Members pay a small fee for access to Storehouse’s 60,000-square-foot warehouse.
In this case, Storehouse received a colossal shipment of books from the publishing company Scholastic.
“We received $500,000 or more of Scholastic books,” Krull said. “It was 90 pallets and each pallet is about 3,000 books. So yeah, hundreds of thousands of books.”
Krull and the Storehouse staff wondered how they would process the enormous quantity of books. Enter Freudigmann and fellow CECI faculty member Sheryl Vlietstra.
The pair had founded the Michigan Literacy Project, which helps recent graduates build their classroom libraries for underserved public school districts across the state. In addition, Krull and Freudigmann shared mutual friends and Krull had mentored teacher candidates too.
In exchange for their time organizing the shipment, each student would receive 240 books to seed their libraries. Some students came prepared, wheeling in roller luggage to handle their haul.
One of those students, Amanda Freeman, was very grateful for the chance. Freeman wrapped up her student teaching assignment on December 6, a day before her graduation. She said she recently received an offer to teach fourth grade and can’t wait to be in her own classroom.
“This is like a dream come true for me,” Freeman said. “It’s really helpful in terms of jump-starting a classroom library.
“I feel like that's the biggest stressor. Books are expensive, and being able to have 240 books, or anywhere near that, like 100 books, is a really big help.”
