Books Breaking Borders

"Books Breaking Borders: Books to End Educational Bankruptcy," was founded in October 2013 by University of Maryland-College park students by Founder Kelsey Nicole Nelson and co-founder Joel Vazquez. The pair created the idea while being apart of the 2013-2014 Rawlings Undergraduate Leadership Fellows cohort which is apart of the University of Maryland's School of Public Policy.The program was designed and fostered to: Helping make educational materials more accessible for low-income youth, while providing tutoring and mentoring to increase graduation rates and help students pass standardized tests to continue on to the next grade level. Specifically, this organization has been catered to helping marginalized minority children gain more access to books. Today, we are proud to have partnered with local and national sponsors to help make this a reality. Early on with support from the Maryland Design Impact Lab, which is comprised of Maryland architecture students, the group was able to help design and build custom made bookshelves for children int he DMV.