Last week, a group of parents donated $2170 from a crowdfunding campaign on GoFundMe to help build inclusive libraries in the New Paltz district’s schools.
With the campaign that ended in late July, the parents had set a $2000 goal with a simple plea: “Please help us raise money to purchase more nonbinary and trans-inclusive, ethnically diverse, racial justice, and other justice-oriented books and resources for our libraries and classrooms.”
Organizer Molly Rausch Carrera said last week that the initiative was motivated in part by the resurgence of marginalized communities, including students, being consumed by the national culture war.
“I am alarmed by the popularity and celebration of intolerance that is happening right now in our country,” she said. “I am alarmed by the wave of white nationalism that is seizing power and how they use fear and ignorance to gain followers. And I am most alarmed by how some people cry victim for any criticism of their intolerant views. That’s such odd logic: ‘Help! It’s not fair when other people judge me for judging them!’”
The donation was unanimously accepted at the school board meeting on Wednesday, August 6. Carrera said passage aligned with the district’s ongoing promise of fostering an environment where all students are valued and made to feel welcome.
“Books are one of the first and most powerful tools we have for helping children learn, grow, and understand the world and their place in it,” said Carrera. “Picture books, storybooks, chapter books, history books, science books, poetry books, biographies, novels, non-fiction, and reference books: these are often our first chance to learn about the world around us, and these books provide our children with their first glimpses of what is possible for their futures.”
The donation is intended to be used by libraries in all the district schools and in individual classrooms for books, magazines, posters, or other materials to help reflect the diversity in the local community.
“Every student should have the chance to see themselves reflected in their school’s resources,” said Carrera. “School is nothing if not a chance for kids to learn ‘Hey, I could do that!’ Black, brown, Asian, gay, nonbinary, and neurodiverse children must also be able to find books with main characters and authors that look like them, and not just as side-characters or lesson-teachers to straight, white main characters. That was the entire goal of the fundraiser, plain and simple.”
There is also a second component to the fundraising: Helping teachers. According to national nonprofit AdoptAClassroom.org, the average teacher in the United States spent $895 out of their own pocket on classroom supplies, books and decorations during the 2024-25 school year. There was no shortage of books in the schools that reflect traditional, white, heterosexual family experiences, Carrera said. “Those stories are just as important and already well-represented. This fundraiser is simply about making sure every student can find books that reflect their own life experiences. Representation for some does not mean exclusion for others; there is plenty of room on our library shelves for every kind of story.”
Inclusion, Carrera added, meant that everyone has a chance to identify more directly with a main character. “Someone’s gender or race or neurotype poses absolutely zero threat to their classmates’ gender, race, or neurotype. Learning about someone else’s life does not make it true for yours. Just like being friends with a gay person doesn’t make you gay, reading a book with a trans character does not make your child decide to change genders. Reading Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret will not make you menstruate, but it might help you understand what is happening when and if you do.”
Carrera said that kids often understand nuance much more easily than grownups do.
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