Anne-Marie Franko sat in City Hall recently, dressed in her beige and white Girl Scout uniform, with a patch stitched to her sash that read, “Troop 615.”
Her father, Robert Franko, walked down the council chamber stairs and planted a kiss on her cheek before heading to his seat.
City Council was honoring the 18-year-old for completing 160 hours of community service toward creating three libraries in the South Bay – at the Boys and Girls clubs of Harbor City, Gardena and Torrance. For that, she received the Gold Award, the highest level award within the program. Within the libraries are different sections for pre-schoolers, beginning readers and college reference books for high school students.
“My goal when I started was to change the world and my community, one book at a time,” Franko said.
Franko hopped down to the dais. “We’re going to tap into your expertise when starting our own Manhattan Beach library into 2012,” said Mayor Nick Tell to Franko, as he presented her with a certificate.
Roughly two years ago, Franko asked the Boys and Girls Club of Harbor City what they needed. Books for their literacy program, they said. So, she compiled 100 addresses of family and friends using her parents’ Christmas card mailing list, and solicited books.
She received 1,800 books in return – enough to put together three separate libraries, and 200 books left over to donate to the Manhattan Beach library. She built bookshelves, categorized the books, trained the club staff, and created a checkout system by pasting index cards and envelopes in each book, so that kids can take the books home.
“We think our world is so perfect, but if you just go down the street, it’s not perfect, and kids don’t have any books to read,” Franko said.
For a year, she organized the books in her living room. “My parents got annoyed for a year of having books on my living room floor,” she joked.
With donated funds, Franko purchased bilingual books and literacy workbooks for the library, which has a literacy program for English learners. “They had worksheets, but no books people could take home and read to practice,” said Melanie Franko, Anne-Marie Franko’s mother.
Franko was inspired to do the project by her grandmother who lives in Ohio, with whom she always visited the local library.
Franko was chosen to march in the Rose Parade in January of 2012, after an application process and interview, with a select few other scouts forming a special Rose Parade troop celebrating the 100th anniversary of Girl Scouts.
Franko said the project was incredibly rewarding. “What touched me the most was a girl, she said, ‘Can I take two books? What books can I take?’” she said. “That just made me really happy.”
