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A new literacy project was launched today. It is called “Angel Says: Read” and it will target tourists. The project asks visitors to take back memories and leave behind their books. Founder Jackie Spinner, a former Washington Post reporter explained how it will work.

Jackie Skinner, Founder - Angel Says: Read
“People bring the current events books, classics, thing they’ve always wanted to read but they don’t have time to do because they are home and they are working and they have families. These are very good books, these are very expensive books. Anybody who has travelled and who has been to a book store in an airport knows those are the best books and those are the books people are leaving, those are the books people are leaving to behind.

It is going to work if tourists will leave me their books. That is basically the premise. People bring vacation reading materials, they bring to read on the beach when they are at the cayes, they bring it when they come just to relax and what I am saying to them is free up some space in your suitcase, leave me your books, we will put them to good use, we will give them to Belizeans to read and then you can buy more souvenirs to take home.

Many of the businesses in Belize are serving as collection points, the hotels, the lodges, the jungle lodges, the tourism village, there will be a box there and then we have a partnership with the University of Belize where there are students who in order to get their volunteer credits will pick up the books and take them to the library.”

Keith Swift,
“What do you hope this will accomplish? What is the goal?”

Jackie Skinner,
“The goal is to get more books into the libraries and the more books the libraries have, the more people will have a reason to come. I love to read and I want people in belie to love to read as much as I do.”

The program is the brainchild of Jackie Spinner but it will be run by a board of directors which include SJC Junior College Dean Neulin Nelson Villanueva, Evan Mose Hyde, and principal librarian Lawrence Vernon. The program was actually started in May and spinner says that so far she has collected and distributed several hundred books.

You can find out more at angelsaysread.com.