by Lori Cothrun, Operations Director
Photographs © Lori Cothrun and Denise Gary
Recently I hopped into my way back machine and was thinking about when I first met Denise Gary. The previous year she had given me a Kids Need to Read (KNTR) business card and bookmark at Phoenix Comicon. Though it took me some time to reach out to her, when I did it was like we had known each other forever. I was lucky enough to work for Bookmans in Arizona at the time and set up an ongoing sponsorship of the annual Kids Need to Read Geek Prom at Phoenix Comicon, solidifying my personal relationship for many, many years. At this point in time KNTR didn’t have an office or real home. Fast forward five years and we have moved into a new space that we will happily grow into.
I was told upon my hire that we had secured a spacious new spot with 2626 square feet, but at the time, while I appreciated the growth, I didn’t completely understand the impact. One of my responsibilities during my first few weeks was working with the delightfully funny Debbie Brown on packing up the office on Mesa Drive. Imagine a quaint 3-bedroom house with many nooks and crannies that held everything that is Kids Need to Read: books, office supplies, events supplies, staff, students, and more. I loved finding new items, touching all of the books, and hearing exclamations of finding lost objects. Even better I met numerous volunteers, including the Phoenix Alumnae of Pi Beta Phi.
On the morning of moving day we woke up early and excited, eagerly awaiting our new friends from Camelback Moving to join us for the day. What a long day it was!
There were many more books and boxes than we could have ever imagined. I kept wondering how did we manage to work in this space for this long. In the nonprofit world, we make do with what we have and we appreciate every moment of it, so walking into our new office space on W. Broadway Road in Mesa, Arizona was a humbling and exhilarating experience. Watching and coordinating with the movers at the old office, we filled an entire truck to the brim plus had to make numerous small trips with boxes upon boxes of books! In my humble opinion, not a bad problem to have!
Finally after many, many hours of labor intensive work, we were finally packed up and ready to go. Quickly we watched our new office space fill up with furniture, books, and all of the truly cool stuff that makes Kids Need to Read unique.
Listening to Denise squee over her new office with a window was amazing.
Seeing my own new office fill up with everything I need to do my job was thrilling.
The best part was coordinating the organization of our storage area of everything else, where no one has to walk up and down the stairs!
Everyone was in great spirits at the end of the day, knowing we had truly invested our time into something momentous. We cannot thank the kindness and generosity of everyone who has helped Kids Need to Read at Camelback Moving Company.
While I was new at the time, I knew how hard everyone had worked for us to get to this point, especially our Chairman, Tyson Breinholt of Commerical Properties, Inc., along with the wonderful folks at Broadwood Business Center. We couldn’t have done it without you. We are always grateful for every volunteer, staff member, board member, donor, fundraising coordinator, etc.—thank you. I mean it, thank you.
