Area Starbucks Coffee Shops Sow first-ever KinderHarvest Magazine Recycling Collection from Consumers to Meet Literacy Needs of at-risk Kids and Families.

Princeton, New Jersey – Combining their well-known passion for environmental and literacy causes, area Starbucks Coffee Shops are among the first consumer locations in the nation to rollout the KinderHarvest magazine recycling drive for children and families learning to read. Residents and businesses are encouraged to drop-off their recent copies of gently used magazines, which will be recycled for summer reading by at-risk children and families. Based on this model effort, KinderHarvest will be expanded to other communities across the U.S. by the Magazine Publishers Family Literacy Project (MagazineLiteracy.org), a national program based in Princeton, New Jersey.

Wooden harvest bins have been se up in the Starbucks at the MarketFair Mall on Route 1 in Princeton and the Starbucks on Route 206 in Hillsborough, where consumers can drop off magazines for all ages. The magazines will be delivered to children and families served by HomeFront, the Trenton Area Soup Kitchen, and other nearby homeless and domestic violence shelters, as well as in bags of groceries picked up at food pantries.

“KinderHarvest berathes a new life into magazines that would otherwise be discarded and destroyed by collecting them from those who love to read them and sending them to new readers,” said John Mennell, Founding Director of MagazineLiteracy.org . “KinderHarvest gets wonderful magazines into the hands, homes, and hearts of children and families who want to learn and love to read. The summer, when children are away from school, is the most important time to help families read together.” He added.

“KinderHarvest, the first effort of it’s kind, is like food gleaning, a practice that is thousands of years old, where crops left in the field are gathered by humanitarians to feed hungry people.” Explained Mennell, “except, this harvest gleans magazines that would have ended up at the curb to feed children and families hungry to read and succeed, recycling the magazines we all love to meet local literacy needs. KinderHarvest combines the three R’s of education with the three R’s of recycling to promote the three R’s of magazine literacy: Read, Rescue, and Reuse,” he added.

The KinderHarvest idea came to Mennell from his experience over two decades organizing supermarket food drives. In 1992, Mennell received a New Jersey Governor’s Volunteer of the Year award for his food drive work. With support from Princeton philanthropist Jamie Majeski, KinderHarvest has collected tens of thousands of surplus magazines from publishers and sent them to children and families served by food banks and to children rebuilding their young lives after Hurricane Katrina. “This effort at Starbucks expands the KinderHarvest program to create a national model that engages businesses and consumers to meet literacy needs at their own grassroots community level,” said Mennell.

The KinderHarvest bins were donated by the Tri-State Crating and Pallet Co. of Jersey City, New Jersey.

About the Magazine Publishers’ Family Literacy Project MagazineLiteracy.org – The Magazine Publishers Family Literacy Project helps kids learn to read and build their self-esteem by organizing collaborative magazine industry, business and community partnerships that provide much needed magazines to schools, shelters, and other community literacy programs. The project strives to unleash the awesome potential of magazines as a powerful literacy resource for children and families.

About Starbucks Starbucks.com – Starbucks Coffee Company provides an uplifiting experience that enriches peoples lives one moment, on human being, on extraordinary cup of coffee at a time.

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