Northview — What happens when one Northview High School student’s idea for a passion project crosses paths with a local nonprofit facing a bit of a dilemma?
In this case, with a little creativity and some heavy lifting, it means nearly 5,000 books are making their way into the hands of young readers — not just in Northview, but throughout West Michigan and beyond.
Thanks to Storehouse of Community Resources and members of the high school National Honor Society, students at Crossroads Middle School and Northview High were treated to a completely free book fair last week. And thanks to junior Sara Botsford, any leftover books are headed to Helen DeVos Children’s Hospital, where they’ll be given to young patients.
“In (National Honor Society), we’re really about lifting student voice and their passions, and holding space for students to organize and put together a plan,” said Janelle Miles, National Honor Society advisor for the high school. “This situation really was kind of a match made in heaven as far as bringing together Sara’s passion for reading, collaborating with Storehouse, and our students’ ability to pull it all together.”
‘How great would it be to provide free books to a population of students that don’t have book fairs anymore, or aren’t able to afford books?’
— Michaela Krull, Storehouse member and community engagement director
An Abundance of Books
The situation in question? An overabundance of pre-teen and young adult books in the warehouse at Storehouse, a local nonprofit that receives donations from large retailers to redistribute to schools and organizations throughout the state.
In 2025, Storehouse received eight truckloads of books, or 187 pallets’ worth, from Scholastic. Some of the books went to Storehouse’s teacher resource store, where teachers from low-income schools can shop for free.
But more than three-quarters of the donation were books for middle- and high-school readers, the category that “moves the slowest from our teacher resource store,” said Michaela Krull, member and community engagement director for Storehouse.
“We have, literally, like a hundred pallets of books, and it’s been shockingly hard to get rid of them,” Krull said. “We called local education foundations, public libraries — they all took a few boxes, but that was like a drop in the ocean compared to the overwhelming amount we still had.”
So Krull, also a board member of the Northview Education Foundation, got creative.
“I’m biased, of course, but I thought, how great would it be for Northview to benefit from the abundance we have? How great would it be to provide free books to a population of students that don’t have book fairs anymore, or aren’t able to afford books?” said Krull, who got the NEF’s blessing to move forward with the idea. “We wanted it to be a gift, but to do that we needed students to facilitate it.”
Right Place, Right Time
That’s where Sara Botsford and her fellow NHS students come in. The student group had already been working on Sara’s passion project: collecting books for DeVos Children’s Hospital.
“I grew up reading — for me, it was my fun hobby,” said Sara, whose mother is an English teacher. “And I was thinking, if (reading) is an escape for me, then it might be an escape for other people. And (at the hospital) there’s a whole bunch of people that could probably use some form of distraction or escape or something that’s more positive than the incredibly difficult things they’re going through.”
When she learned that all books donated to the hospital needed to be brand new, for health and safety reasons, Sara reached out to Assistant Principal Audra Whetstone, a former English teacher, for advice on where to look.
That just so happened to be the same week Krull first spoke to Whetstone about the book fair idea.
“It was like, perfect — what divine timing,” Sara said. “We can work together: (NHS students) can do the book fair, and my project gets some help that it needs. I was very excited because it was exactly what both of us needed.”
Sara and her fellow NHS students are the ones who managed logistics and truly made the book fair happen, according to Whetstone. They recruited student volunteers, hauled boxes of books, organized sections by genre, created a spreadsheet where ELA and special education classes could sign up for a shopping time, and restocked as necessary throughout the week.
Being able to share her love of reading made the work worth it, Sara said.
“I saw a lot more people than I was expecting (who were) actually being interested in reading and genuinely looking at the books,” she said. “I’ve seen people in the hallways carrying the books that came from here and had people tell me they were so glad we organized it. That’s been so much fun.”
Whetstone said being able to give away books in a student-led book fair embodied all the reasons why she went into education. She and the teachers and librarians at NHS and Crossroads enjoyed spending the week helping students find the perfect book, suggesting new genres and even watching some students pick out a gift for a sibling.
“It has been incredible to watch this come together and that it’s literally reaching every student,” the assistant principal said. “It’s just this wonderful low-barrier invitation to reading. We don’t track anything. They’re really just here to take whatever looks interesting, and to be able to give that opportunity to them is so exciting.”
More to Give
For Sara, who said she was sometimes teased in elementary school for her voracious reading habits, it’s been gratifying to see those attitudes shift.
“I feel like in the last few years, reading has actually become more of a popular thing to do, thanks to social media, which makes me really happy,” she said. “So I’m glad that people can find these books and maybe find community in that or learn something new.”
‘It was like, perfect — what divine timing.’
— junior Sara Botsford
Sara’s now ready for the next step of the project: boxing up all the leftover books and coordinating the donation at the children’s hospital.
And Krull plans to use the Northview book fairs as a test case of what can be possible elsewhere. She hopes to partner with student leaders in other districts across the state to organize something similar. After all, Storehouse still has about 30 pallets of books yet to give away.
“Reading is the basis of everything, but you have to have access to it,” Krull said. “We want our donations to be a gift, but not a burden to the district — we need students to help facilitate, and I think we’re proving it can be done here in Northview.”
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