When Cara McCollum founded the Birthday Book Project as a teenager in Forrest City, Arkansas, she couldn’t have known the impact the project would have on early literacy here when she came to South Jersey. The Birthday Book Project provides brand new gift-wrapped books for children K-5th grade on their birthdays as a special gift—because reading and early literacy are gifts every child deserves.
In February of 2016, Cara was tragically killed in a car accident. Her mission, however, lives on through the lives of her friends, her peers, and dedicated volunteers who carry on a tradition of meeting together to wrap new books and distribute them to local schools in South Jersey and Forrest City, where it all began.
Since its inception when Cara was just a teenager, the Birthday Book Project has donated tens of thousands of books to children and has helped spark new interest in reading as our world becomes increasingly digitized.
Cara, who was named Miss New Jersey in 2013, was the lead news anchor of SNJ Today’s nightly newscast from 2015 when it launched until her passing. Cara’s gift to the world was more than grace and infectious positivity. She’s given the gift of reading to underprivileged children and helped to make so many birthdays just a little bit brighter.