How 25Books Came to Be
25Books is the evolution of another book giveaway program called Launch Pad. Launch Pad Educational Programs began in 2011 as a small group of volunteers hoping to improve educational outcomes for foster, homeless, and low-income children who also had learning difficulties.
From 2012 to 2015 Launch Pad, an all-volunteer, part-time, non-profit program, offered specialized one-to-one educational help two afternoons a week to students from our target demographic. 
Unfortunately this model was not sustainable. Very few low-income students had families who could transport them twice a week for individualized instruction. Thus, Launch Pad was not able to grow the program and serve more children.
The Launch Pad team members, founder Anita Harten-Kroeber, and volunteers Alex Hubner and Bobby Pelz, decided to revisit the mission and consider whether a different service model would reach more students. After much discussion, the team liked the idea of giving children age-appropriate new and used books at no cost. This would provide educational benefits to many more children, and if Launch Pad put on book giveaways at schools and agencies that already worked with the children we wished to serve, there would be no transportation difficulties for the families.
Launch Pad designed a new program based on research done in 42 different countries that found that the greater the number of books in a home, the better the eventual educational outcomes are for the children, regardless of the educational levels of the parents. Additional research showed that providing new books and allowing students to choose their own books, increased the effectiveness of book give-away programs. This was also incorporated into Launch Pad’s new model. The book program began in September of 2015 and was built around a model of children each selecting one new book and one used book from no-cost book fairs put on at their schools or at various non-profit agencies.
Launch Pad continued to grow until the summer of 2018 when the program reached an inflection point. It had grown to four book giveaways a year totaling over 5,000 books to 2,500 kids. The program was a success, but it would require funding and more commitment from volunteers to sustain the current level and grow beyond it. After looking at the program to determine how to move forward, it was decided that a new program would be created to continue the great work started by Launch Pad by working to increase funding, books given, and children reached. The original Launch Pad program could continue to exist as a smaller program that focuses on infant through preschool literacy.
In the original model of Launch Pad, 25Books was born. The original schools are still served and the kids that attend them are still getting their books. The new mission for this new program, is to continue growing the program throughout the county, slowly reaching more and more children through the schools and community programs they attend, ending illiteracy one book at a time.