LA JOLLA — Megan Hastings seems like an ordinary teen. She attends The Bishop’s School, is looking forward to turning 16 and getting her driver license, and she loves to read. It’s that love of books, though, that drove Hastings to do something so extraordinary that Youth Service America, a community service organization, awarded her with an Everyday Hero Award on Oct. 4. “Last fall I was going through all my books and I realized I had so many, but I didn’t just want to give them away. I wanted to do something with them,” Hastings said. That’s when she got the idea to give all her old books to Becky’s House, a chain of local domestic-violence shelters run by the YMCA. After she contacted Becky’s House counselor Caity Meader, together they arranged for other students at The Bishop’s School to get involved by challenging them all to bring in at least one book. “I was hoping for about 800, because that’s how many students and faculty there are at the school, but by the end of the month I received 3,000. My garage was overflowing,” Hastings said. Her work wasn’t done yet. Hastings was responsible for sorting each book into specific age and genre categories — a project that took almost 116 hours to complete. With so many books provided, Hastings and Meader had enough to fill three libraries at the shelters with stories for kids from kindergarten through high school. In addition, Hastings also received a $500 donation from San Diego’s IKEA store. She and Meader used these funds to construct shelving for the books. Hastings said she was inspired to bring her old books to Becky’s House because she knows how comforting books can be and she wanted, above all, to share that feeling with the victims of domestic abuse. “What really drove it home for me though was an experience I had one day while I was stocking books at the emergency shelter,” Hastings said. “There was a woman by me talking on the phone to tell her daughter’s school that she couldn’t attend that day because she and her daughter had been attacked by the mother’s ex-husband. I noticed that her daughter was sitting in the corner reading. It felt good to see that these books were providing a small distraction during such a difficult time.” Since the books were provided, Meader has noted that Becky’s House has instituted a summer reading program, which works in conjunction with the San Diego Library. The program rewards kids who complete their summer reading lists with prizes such as museum tickets and passes to SeaWorld. “The reading program did so well this summer,” said Meader. “Kids were excited about reading, about school. Each child in the program averaged 30 hours of summer reading, and none of it would have been possible without Megan.” Hastings is still involved with the shelter. She visits Becky’s House often to read stories to children under a program called “Storytime.” In the end, Hastings said this process has reinforced her love for books and the positive effects that sharing that love can have.
