A mailman in Sandy, Utah was so affected by a boy asking for advertising catalogues as was so eager to read, that he was inspired to help. He decided to bypass the junk mail, and find some better reading material for the eager 12-year-old.
After asking the boy if he’d ever been to the library, Kim Noble learned that Matthew Flores said his family didn’t have money to spare for the bus fare. The good Samaritan was so inspired by Flores’ love of the written word that he decided to hatch a plan. Turning to social media, he put a call out to his Facebook friends for books expecting his plan to garner a few to hand to Flores. What eventuated was a landslide of 300 books, coming from the U.S but also overseas.
The clever bookworm expressed his excitement and gratitude to a local reporter. He said, “Reading is interesting– plus, it gets you smarter,”.
The kindness continues with Lynch and Flores saying they are planning to pay the books forward, sending some to other children who are faced with a similar situation.
In a recent study by Kim Noble, the first author on a study at Columbia University in New York, the results showed that children in a lower socioeconomic group had who have less cognitive stimulation in their daily lives were at risk of certain brain regions being smaller than those born into wealthier families.
The results were published in Nature neuroscience. Noble said, “Interventions to improve socioeconomic circumstances, family life, and educational opportunities can make a vast difference.”
Access to books and other educational materials is a large step in the right direction, and Flores’ enthusiasm and chance meeting with Ron Lynch has paved a great start to future learning for him and others in his situation.
