Promising Pages is a non-profit organization that collects donated books and distributes them to children with few, if any, books at home. Their mission is to provide ownership of books to underserved children and cultivate a lifelong love of reading through innovative literacy programs and partnerships.
The partnership between CBI, the Live Love Serve Foundation and Promising Pages is a special one. Promising Pages is one of the first organizations that the Live Love Serve Foundation supported after its inception. David Longo met Kristina Cruise, former founder of Promising Pages, in 2011 at a Chamber of Commerce meeting in Charlotte, North Carolina. She was presenting to a group of Chamber members about her idea to bring books into the homes of families in our community who do not have extra income to provide them for their children. She spoke with passion about the impact reading books can have on a child, and her energy and vision for the organization was inspiring.
As the Founder and CEO of CBI Workplace Solutions, David wanted to lend a hand however he could to help Promising Pages accomplish its mission in Charlotte. In speaking with Cruise, he realized that the thing the organization needed most was a space where they could store and sort the books they collected and prepare them for distribution to members of our community. This led to the donation of warehouse space where Promising Pages quickly took up residence and grew their organization.
Nine years later, Promising Pages has distributed almost 700,000 donated books to tens of thousands of children in the Charlotte area. Additionally, Promising Pages partners with 100+ business and organizations to bring direct classroom programming and more than 150,000 free books to Charlotte schools annually.
Eric Law, Executive Director of Promising Pages says, “All of us at Promising Pages are deeply grateful for the ongoing generosity of CBI and the Live Love Serve Foundation. David Longo’s initial gift of warehouse space in 2011 enabled our Founder Kristina Cruise to get this fledgling organization up and running (and out of her garage)! More recently, the 2018 tripling of our warehouse space and renovation of adjacent office spaces for our staff is helping us take our operation to the next level. We have continued to increase our supply chain efficiency and effectiveness in this expanded space enhancing our ability to provide book ownership, promote daily reading for pleasure and eradicate the Charlotte area book desert.”
In addition to the warehouse space, CBI and the Live Love Serve Foundation have donated more than $68,000 to Promising Pages over the years, and we look forward to continue supporting them however we can in the future. Learn more about Promising Pages and their mission by visiting https://promising-pages.org/.
