Today we’d like to introduce you to Shari Gullo.
Shari, let’s start with your story. We’d love to hear how you got started and how the journey has been so far.
My youngest son played college baseball in the Ohio Valley Conference, so my husband and I traveled all over the Ohio Valley Conference to watch him play. Repeatedly driving through Appalachia I was struck by the poverty. I grew up in Oregon, Wisconsin. When I was young the population was smaller than that of Lake Zurich’s high school when my oldest son attended.
Oregon’s library was one small room in its village hall. The librarian knew everyone in towns library number by heart. The library meant the world to me. I loved choosing books that transported me to other places and times. I couldn’t imagine my life without that experience. When I learned about the limited access to books and the high illiteracy rates in Appalachia I wanted to help.
A billboard in Berea, Kentucky showed Berea College had a major in Appalachian Studies. I found that interesting and I remembered that fact when I wanted to connect with an organization in Appalachia. I reached out to the Appalachian Studies department and it was recommended that I contact an organization in West Virginia – Step By Step (StepByStepWV.org). I read a great deal about Step By Step and the work it was doing in the coal mining areas of West Virginia and the more I read the more impressed I became.
It was an organization that had been helping people in West Virginia for 25 years. It was started by a Harvard graduate, Michael Tierney, who lives among those he helps. I was hooked. I knew I had found the organization I wanted to be associated with. I decided to start a book drive. I put my idea out on Facebook. I had no idea exactly how I was going to get books or how I would get them to West Virginia. I just went on faith.
Diane Myers of Lake Zurich, the sister of a long-time friend heard about what I was doing and offered to help. I went to businesses and put out collection boxes and waited to see what happened. After a few weeks, we received donations of over 10,000 books! Diane and I could no longer park our cars in our garages. A cousin of mine from San Francisco, Craig Klosterman, heard about the book drive and donated money to ship the books, along with the American Legion in Lake Zurich.
Step By Step started a community center in Big Ugly, West Virginia, named after Big Ugly Creek, which runs in front of it. I decided to call the book drive The Big Ugly Book Drive. It was the perfect name because people remembered it. Big Ugly is in an area that has the highest rate of substandard housing in the United States. The community center is the only public building within a 25-mile radius, other than two small churches. The nearest library is a 50-mile round-trip. Sixty-eight percent of the homes do not have one children’s book. Almost one-quarter of the population is illiterate and below the poverty level. Many families have been hit hard by the opioid crisis. It’s an area in dire need.
After the book drive, the books kept coming. My husband and I drove to Big Ugly to deliver another load of books. I finally was able to meet the people there and get to know them. They are a proud people, doing the best they can with limited resources. They were so appreciative of the books and struck by the fact that people in Chicagoland wanted to help them. The people in the Big Ugly area live with food insecurity and ironically also have energy insecurity, often losing power although they are next to the largest coal mine in the state of West Virginia.
An outgrowth of the book drive I hadn’t anticipated was that in an area almost defined by lack, the book drive was tangible evidence of abundance. While we visited the community center tables were covered with books we donated. Children went passed the tables and chose books. We watched them reading their new books. Some children chose cookbooks for their moms and books for their fathers, as well as for their siblings. It brought tears to my eyes. I was hooked and have been sending books ever since. We recently surpassed the 18,000 bookmark.
Our challenges are shipping costs. I would like to find a donor who would transport the books for us or who would pay for the transportation costs. I would also like to find a donor who would allow us to store books, so they wouldn’t be in boxes all over our house.
Great, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
Books are heavy and cost a lot to ship. As a way of continuing the book drive as cheaply as possible, my husband and I take books with us every time we visit Kentucky. The Madison County Library in Berea, Kentucky has been generous in allowing us to store books there. Volunteers from Step By Step periodically go to Berea and pick them up. This is a slow way for us to get books there, but it doesn’t cost anything.
My dream is to do another expanded book drive and send at least another 25,000 books there. The need is so great. Step By Step gives books directly to children, to senior centers, and schools. It also interviews families, finds out the reading level of each family member and their interests. Then it sets them up with home libraries. The hope is that children will see their parents read and emulate them, that parents will read to their children if books are available in the home, and that children will read more. It is a way to increase literacy.
Most importantly in my mind is the opportunity to get children and their parents to dream, to expand their minds and their awareness. That is what books did for me and that is what I wish for them.
Big Ugly Book Drive – what should we know? What do you guys do best? What sets you apart from the competition?
What I have discovered is that there is a trend towards helping people locally. Many companies will only support a cause if it within their community. If I hadn’t started the book drive it never would have occurred to me that this could in some way be detrimental. The Big Ugly, WV area is depressed, due to the loss of coal mining jobs. There aren’t any local businesses to help the people there. Although I fully understand the thought process of helping those around oneself first, it is important for us to help people further afield, who have no one to help them.
I have been told my cause is ridiculous, that helping get something as heavy and as expensive to transport as books, to people several states away is stupid. I’ve also been accused of racism, only wanting to help white people, which is an ignorant comment since Step by Step helps a large population of people of color. I’ve been told I can’t scale my cause because it is too difficult and expensive. Comments like that just galvanize me further. I keep reminding myself of what JFK said about the goal of getting a man to the moon, we weren’t going to attempt it because it was easy, but because it is hard. Getting books to West Virginia is hard, but it is worthwhile and so rewarding. I won’t stop.
What moment in your career do you look back most fondly on?
My proudest moment was standing in the Big Ugly Community Center and watching children choosing books for themselves. Seeing their happy faces made it all worthwhile.
Getting over 10,000 books to West Virginia in our first shipment at very little cost and getting books their since for next to nothing out of pocket has been rewarding. I was raised in a very frugal home. I was taught never to mention a sum of money and place the word “only” in front of it. All the donation boxes I fashioned out of free ones from Jewel. All the books were shipped in boxes obtained free from Jewel. Pallets we loaded them on were donated. The only things I have ever purchased have been tape to close the boxes and stretch wrap to wrap around pallets. I have been doing this on less than a shoestring!
Now that I think about it, what I am most proud of is that I had an idea and I acted on it, that I didn’t wait to figure out how I would do it. I just trusted in God that if He wanted books for the people in West Virginia it would happen. You hear about how you need a business plan, that it’s foolish to start something until you figure things out first. There is a quote about how everyone gets an idea in the shower, but few people do anything with them. If I had tried to figure out everything ahead of time I would have fully understood all the roadblocks and I would never have started the book drive. I am most proud of for one of the few times in my life, I just went for it.
Contact Info:
- Website: StepByStepWV.org
- Phone: 304-855-5402
- Email: mtierney@stepbystepwv.org
Image Credit:
Kandi Workman, Michael Tierney
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