About Our Organization

Since 2001, Pathways Within has donated over 800,000 children's books through our children’s literacy programming. We currently serve community centers, schools, libraries and child-care centers, after-school programs in large and small communities from Alaska to Puerto Rico. Initially, our program focused on small and rural communities in the South and North Eastern part of the country. Presently, the number of requests for the donation of books has quadrupled and the geographical area has expanded to encompass the entire United States.

The Roads to Reading Initiative is very unique because it has an all volunteer staff of four people who administer its programs. We have had the same four staff members since the inception of the Roads to Reading program. Each staff person spends a minimum of 32 hours per week working in our office. Our staff members are:

  • Executive Director: Kathryn Jenkins
  • Program Director: Lauren Green
  • Inventory and Book Manager: Maribel Lopez
  • Administrative Assistant: Lori Williams
  • Twelve other occasional volunteers

Our organization is unique in other ways. Since we have an all volunteer staff, our operating expenses are very low. For every dollar that our organization receives in donations, seventy cents goes into the initiative’s programming, while only thirty cents is used toward our operating expenses.

The Roads to Reading Initiative programs are divided into three classifications of book distribution:

Programming Donations:

  • The Annual Book Donation Program
  • The Director’s Discretionary Book Donation Program

Non-Programming Donations Programs:
(English and Spanish books)

  • All Children Need Books
  • Books for All Kids


Our programming book donations are made to nonprofits in order to provide quality children literature to enhance the reading skills of children that are struggling readers, while our non-programming book donations are made to individual children or to organizations that place the books into the hands of underserved children that do not have access to quality children’s literature. If you would like to learn more about the Roads to Reading and ways in which you can help us, call us at 617-515-7084 and speak to the Executive Director, Kathryn Jenkins.