NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) – It started with hundreds of books stored in the basement of Mathew Portell’s tiny house in East Nashville.
The piles of pre-loved children’s stories – collected from the local biking community in support of a local teacher’s big idea – then turned into thousands of books. They moved from the basement to a 5-by-5-foot shed. Then to a 10-by-10. Pretty soon, Portell had so many books he had to find space in a building.
And that is how the tale of Ride for Reading began.
Now, the Nashville-based nonprofit that collects and delivers books to low-income children in the most unusual way – by bike – has grown so big that it’s in 16 cities, including Las Vegas where each year more than 100 book-delivering bike riders shut down the casino-lined strip to deliver thousands of books to Nevada kids.
In eight years, more than 300,000 copies of “The Cat in the Hat” and “Thomas the Tank Engine,” ”Madeline” and “Amelia Bedelia” and tons of other reads have been given away here and across the country. And the organization wants to do more.