Maria’s Bookshop Launches New Nonprofit 

Maria's Bookshop is celebrating 40 years by launching a new nonprofit to continue to serve the community. You're watching the Local NEWS Network brought to you by Tafoya Barrett and Associates and M&R Plumbing. I'm Sadie Smith. Maria's Literary Foundation launched under the fiscal sponsorship of the Community Foundation serving Southwest Colorado. Its objective is to expand access to books, foster community, and protect the right to read.

The mission of Maria's Bookshop has always been able to create community connection through books and its community has been so supportive of Maria's bookshop. It felt like an obvious next step to grow that community connection. And we feel like this nonprofit is the means that lets us serve our whole community.

Maria's Literary Foundation aims to bring books and literary programs to underserved communities. With the help of donations, the nonprofit will provide new books to those in need, as well as support teachers who often pay for classroom books out of their own pockets.

Expanding access to books and literary programming in practice looks like donating a ton of books. So we're hoping to work with schools and individual classrooms and families, and then community service organizations that are already doing great work in the community, like the Community Compassion Center, or Manna.

It's not just about the distribution of books. Maria's Literary Foundation, Executive Director, Nina Lundstorm, believes in the importance of a good story and the impact it can have on someone's life.

There's nothing like the joy of a really good book or the feeling when you read a book and you see yourself in it in a deeper way, or maybe you see someone else's experience in a deeper way, or maybe you just get transported to a whole new world. And we just want everyone in this community to have the joy of that experience.

Books can challenge perspectives, showing the world in new ways, but they also offer comfort when we find stories that reflect our own experiences.

Everyone who is a reader knows the feeling when they first read a book where they were like, "Oh, that's me. I can see myself there. I can see myself in that character or in that landscape." And there are such, so many wonderful books out there that represent all different kinds of people and places and experiences, and being able to have that available to everyone is so important.

Maria's Literary Foundation hopes to serve the entire community because everyone deserves a good book. To support Maria's Literary Foundation and its mission of expanding book access in the community, you can donate online. For more information about this and other stories, visit durangolocal.news. Thank you for watching this edition of The Local NEWS Network. I'm Sadie Smith.