9-year-old girl runs lemonade stands to buy books with POC characters and authors for libraries

A 9-year-old elementary student in Provo, Utah is doing her part in preventing racism by making school libraries more inclusive.

Spark of kindness: Emi Kim, a fourth grade Westridge Elementary School student, wanted to help people of different cultures better understand each other by introducing diverse books to her school library, reported Good Morning America.

“One day my mom and aunt asked me how I would want to make a difference in the world and I said to help stop racism,” Emi was quoted as saying.
Emi and her family decided that a good way to do this was by adding more books that feature people of color into school libraries.
The young student believes that part of the reason people treat others negatively based on their race is that “we’re afraid of what we don’t know.”
Emi, who is of Hawaiian, Polynesian, Korean, Japanese and Chinese descent, shared that in the past she has experienced racism a couple of times which did not make her “feel good at all.”

Spark of hope: With the help of her parents, Emi set up a lemonade stand and a baked goods stand on July 8 to raise funds so she could buy 15 books for her school.

Emi then made a presentation explaining the need for diverse books in libraries and shared it with her school’s principal, Kim Hawkins.
In her presentation, Emi included statistics from the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Cooperative Children’s Book Center which stated that there are more books with white people or animals as main characters than there are books with protagonists who are Black, Indigenous or people of color.
Emi’s mom, Dorie Kim, shared that after raising $762, they were able to buy five sets of 15 books for five local schools.
With Hawkins’ approval, Emi purchased books with main characters from Polynesian, Asian, Native American, Latino and Black cultures. According to Dorie, her daughter selected books that were “actually written or illustrated by someone of that race.”
Emi’s efforts in impacting a positive change at her own school led to library improvements in her city’s entire school district, reported Fox13.
The Provo school district was so inspired by Emi’s work that it bought the same 15 books for other elementary schools in the city.
Westridge Elementary School also gave Emi an award for her initiative last month.

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Emi put up another lemonade stand on Sept. 25 and raised $3,029. She plans to use the funds to buy books about kids with disabilities.

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Featured Image via Westridge Elementary – Provo Utah

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