Our Founder:
Melinda Shelley
Melinda Shelley, a volunteer in our local community, understands that babies and children need books to have a real chance in life. Knowing that you first need to have books to be able to read to children, but that books are a luxury when you are struggling to put food on the table, Mrs Shelley has taken action to create change where governments and agencies have not.
123Read2Me Limited
123Read2Me became a registered charity and public benevolent institution in late 2015 with DGR (item 1) and TCC status.
Jeff Shelley joined as Managing Director and CEO to lead the operations. He brings 40 years experience in logistics, customer service, marketing, at senior levels across leading consumer brands. He also has 50+ years in community service organisations.
Lions Club International
In 2016, we created the 123Read2Me Children’s Literacy Project in partnership with, and the support of, the Lions Club of Mordialloc-Mentone Inc and the Lions’ Districts 201V5, plus a growing number of clubs in Lions Districts across Australia including 201V3, 201 V6, 201V1-4, 201Q2 and 201N4.
This project has helped 123Read2Me collect, sort, pack and giveaway over 900,000 free books to vulnerable and at-risk children
Distribution
These books are eagerly taken by the children and their families through several of the local fish and chip shops (Operation Takeaway), play groups, Maternal & Child Health Centres, Childcare Centres, Kindergartens, 76+ Primary Schools, The Hippy Program Frankston North, Centrelink Frankston, Cheltenham, Cranbourne & Hastings, City Life Mission Frankston, Peninsula Legal Aid Frankston and the Frankston Crisis Centre and many more. We support the operations of over 120 organisations through the provision of FREE books.
Pick up books
Collect books from our Book Drop Off Points and drop them back to us.
Call Jeff on 0402 183 122 to discuss the options.
Recognition
Melinda Shelley’s efforts have been recognised through:
- 2014 Victorian Pride of Australia Medal for Community Spirit.
- 2016: Lions Clubs International’s Melvin Jones Fellowship for Dedicated Humanitarian Services
- 2016: Both Jeff Shelley & Melinda Shelley were presented with the Australian Lions Foundation’s James D Richardson Honour Award for Humanitarian Service.
The Future
Our goal is to give two (2) books a month to every child under 15 living in poverty in Australia. This means we will have to collect, sort, pack and ship the equivalent of 78,000+ books every day.
Who do you know that might be able to help us with warehousing?
Let us know if you can help
Thanks. We love to hear from you
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