VHHS’ Mei Mei Sun establishes nonprofit for book donations

Mei Mei Sun moved to the United States expecting to see the land of opportunity she had learned so much about. While she entered Vestavia Hills City Schools and was greeted with several resources, she said the fact that other students lacked the same resources just a few miles away was disappointing.

“Because America is a place of equity, it’s a place of progress, it’s a place of productiveness, I was really discouraged when I moved to the greater Birmingham area and found that ... segregation might have ended in the 1950s, but self-segregation is continually the most damning evil that is plaguing the Birmingham area,” said Sun, a senior at Vestavia Hills High School.

Sun’s family immigrated to the United States from China, where she grew up in an impoverished area. She saw the difference in funding at Chinese schools — “There are high schools with huge, enormous libraries, and then there are high schools that can’t even fill a bookshelf,” she said — and when she saw similar inequities between Birmingham-area systems, she wanted to do something about it. 

“I was encouraged to use the abilities afforded to me by the American government that I never could have had in China or Japan, such as the opportunity to launch a nonprofit, to use my free speech,” Sun said.

In her junior year, Sun decided to create Books4Bham, a youth-driven initiative that aims to provide educational equity in the Greater Birmingham area through book drives of educational materials. 

“We’re youth-driven in the sense that the highest priority is Birmingham City School students and also that we, as high school students, are the impetus, that we’re the leading start of the movement,” Sun said. “They [the students] have been really, really excited to get involved in an organization that is much more organic and local and specific to our city’s needs.”

Books4Bham has received support from local nonprofits and businesses that are willing to donate materials and funding, Sun said, in addition to support from fellow students. 

“I have found that local hospitality, particularly in the Birmingham area, has given me so much hope and progress for my future. … there are like, CEOs of banks that are looking to take me to business lunch,” she said.

Nonprofits have also approached her about making Books4Bham a subsidiary part of their organization. While she hopes to continue a partnership with Vestavia Hills High School throughout her senior year and into the future, Sun said she also believes partnering with another nonprofit, rather than creating her own, would be most beneficial for Books4Bham and the community.

As of June, the initiative had collected nearly 1,500 books, donated to about 14 schools and had reached more than 1,400 students. This has mainly been in Birmingham City Schools, but Sun said she hopes to expand her reach to rural schools in the area by the end of the 2018-19 school year.

“Yes, Birmingham City Schools is a location in which there are struggling schools, there are failing schools, there are students who have not had their needs met; however they already have large institutional supports,” she said. “Rural elementary schools in the area actually don’t receive the institutional and structural and government-supported systems that we see inner city schools have.”

Sun plans multiple book drives toward the start of the school year. To stay up to date on events or to find out how to donate, go to books4bham.org.