Books for Keeps Executive Director Ruthi Hortsch reads a book in the BFK Warehouse, located at 420 Athena Drive, on Feb. 18. Hortsch has served as the Executive Director for 18 months and has worked to improve literacy in elementary school students by curating positive reading experiences. “(I hope that) when people think about literacy in Athens, they think about (BFK), and they think about the great ways that we have been able to support that,” Hortsch said. Photo by Iliana Tejada
Books for Keeps Executive Director Ruthi Hortsch discusses her involvement with nonprofits and the work BFK does to improve literacy among youth.
Viewpoints Editor Isabella Gresham: What led you to your role as the Books for Keeps Executive Director?
Books for Keeps Executive Director Ruthi Hortsch: I started my career thinking I wanted to be a math professor. In (my) undergrad, I majored in math and physics. Then, I went to grad school (at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology) to get a math PhD and I realized that I did not like the day-to-day of doing math research enough to be a professor, so I had to figure out what to do next. I did a lot of volunteering and activism, and I wanted that to be more of my life. Also, I spent my summers of grad school working for a summer camp called Canada/USA Mathcamp (where) I got to teach the things I thought were coolest about math to high schoolers who are really into it. I’m a strong proponent that summer camp is magical. I think it is life-changing. So, what I was looking for was something that combined those two things: the joy I got from working at the summer camp and the wanting to give back to the world.
IG: Could you tell me about Bridge to Enter Advanced Mathematics and how the summer camp led you there?
RH: Conveniently for me, as I was graduating, Bridge to Enter Advanced Mathematics was hiring, and their mission is to create realistic pathways for low-income and underrepresented youth to enter (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) careers. One of the big things they do is run a bunch of math camps for middle schoolers, so I got hired partially because I knew how to run a summer camp. At the time, they were running three summer camps that first summer I was working with them, it grew a lot. And then the other reason I was hired is because I had math expertise. They were (a) nonprofit (and) I was hired as program manager. I was the fifth employee there, and I stayed there for seven and a half years. When I left, there were more than 40 people working. We were running six (camps) ourselves, but we’d also started a branch of the organization that was basically partnering with local organizations to help those organizations run their own. During the time when BEAM underwent all that growth, I also grew professionally a lot. I was taking on more responsibilities, and my role was pivoting as the organization grew, so when I left, my title was Executive Director of New York Programs. I was in charge of everything we did in New York City.
Books for Keeps Executive Director Ruthi Hortsch poses with the BFK Bookmobile at 420 Athena Dr. on Feb. 18. Hortsch has seen BFK evolve through a cycle of growth and recovery since she began work there in July 2024. “We have three-year strategic plans at Books for Keeps. This strategic plan is focused on (growing) in a very thoughtful, planned way, and in a way that’s a little bit less experimental than you’d have otherwise,” Hortsch said. “The three years before that, we were doing a lot of trying new programs, seeing what works, so that’s when we added the Bookmobile.” Photo by Iliana Tejada
IG: How did you go from working for BEAM in New York City to working for BFK in Athens in July 2024?
RH: The person I’m now married to, (whom) I met in grad school, got a tenure-track job at (the University of Georgia), so I decided to move to Athens, and I didn’t want to work remotely. I wanted to have the work I was doing be contributing to the community I was a part of, and so I transitioned out of the role at BEAM, and that’s when I was starting to look for a nonprofit job in Athens (and) I ended up at Books for Keeps. Their executive director was leaving during this time when I was looking, (and) it’s a really good fit. I am a big reader, so the mission is really personal to me, and I have the expertise and the experience of having worked for a nonprofit, having managed a large team of people, and having gone through that experience of (being) small and then growing, (which) can be a really painful process. There’s a lot of lessons to be learned.
IG: What does your role as Executive Director look like on a day-to-day basis?
RH: I’m responsible for making sure that everything is running smoothly and that we’re being true to our mission and our long-term goals. I manage the staff. We have five full-time people, including me, and then we have one part-time staff member. I don’t manage all of them directly, but I’m at the top, and I set strategic priorities and goals. (I) make decisions about our next steps for things. I’m often the outside communicator, so I’m going to meetings, representing us, talking to people (and) doing interviews. Right now, I’m also doing a lot of our fundraising. Everybody helps out a little bit, because when you’re in a small nonprofit, that’s how it works. But, I’m currently setting the goals for our fundraising and making decisions about what to prioritize.
IG: What are your goals as the Executive Director?
RH: I think Books for Keeps right now is an adolescent nonprofit. We’re no longer brand new. We’re not just getting our feet under the ground, but we’re also not longtime and established. There are a lot of nonprofits in town that have been around for 40 years, and so my goal is to get us to a place where we are ready and have the infrastructure and structure in place to be around for 40 more years and to become one of those nonprofits that has always been around.
IG: What is BFK’s mission and how does the board work to achieve that?
RH: Our mission is to create joyful experiences around literacy that can be forever associated with learning. So I think we’re doing that in a couple of different ways. One of the big things is, of course, book access. So we’re not just giving books, and we’re not just trying to get kids to read better. Our mission is also (to make) people feel positively about reading in a way that means that it can be a part of their life in a low level (so) it’s always there. And so when we think about how we design our programs, we’re always thinking about (things) like, ‘Are these things that can get kids excited?’ and ‘How do we bring student choice (in)?’ because student choice is really important, too.
“ Our mission is to create joyful experiences around literacy that can be forever associated with learning.”
— Ruthi Hortsch,
Books for Keeps Executive Director
IG: Could you explain what BFK’s Stop Summer Slide program is?
RH: Our flagship program is our Spring Book Distribution (or) Stop Summer Slide. It’s the program that we started the organization under. In 2009, a second-grade girl told her mentor she wasn’t looking forward to summer break because she loved reading and she didn’t have access to books outside of the school library. So, some community volunteers came together, (and) they found out that this wasn’t just (the) case (for) one girl. This was actually the case for many youth in Athens. And so that first summer they got three books to every second grader at (Bettye Henderson) Holston Elementary, formerly Alps roads Elementary, and so that’s where it started. The group of volunteers who became the board looked into research on giving kids books before the summer, and this is tied to something called summer slide (which is when students,) especially low-income students, lose learning during the summer, so they come back from summer break and they test lower than they were. You don’t see this with middle and high-income kids as much because they have access to resources low-income kids don’t. There’s an achievement gap between low-income kids and higher-income kids. For literacy, people have looked into what we (can) do to stop that. The research shows that the most impactful thing you can do is give kids books that they’re excited about reading. For kindergarten, first and second graders, if you make sure they get 10 to 12 books (that) they help choose themselves that they’re excited about, that completely reverses the learning loss and can, on average, also lead to some learning gains over the summer.
IG: Could you tell me about BFK’s second-largest program, Storytellers Literacy Mentor Program?
RH: (Storytellers Literacy Mentor) is actually a pretty new program. It’s in its fourth year, and what we do is we recruit, train and coordinate volunteers who commit to coming into a given school once a week, and they read with the same kid every week. It’s first, second and third graders right now, and so the kids get 30 minutes (per mentor). They usually have two mentors, (so) they get 60 extra minutes of reading each week, and they get more adults in their life who they see every week (and) have a one-on-one connection with. We’re currently in two schools, (Howard B.) Stroud Elementary School and Fowler (Drive) Elementary School, and it’s been showing really promising early results in terms of the impact we’re seeing. We’re seeing the kids in the program gain learning beyond what they would just be gaining from going to school. 58% of (the students in the program) were on-level for reading, and that’s compared to 36% who are on-level for reading at a control school (that) has similar demographics but isn’t getting the program.
A timeline showcasing the history of the nonprofit organization Books for Keeps is shown. After its establishment in 2022, the Storytellers Literacy Mentor Program features a one-on-one mentor for second and third-grade students, and has worked to better literacy and maintain daily routines. “The program manager who runs Storytellers, who also did a lot of the program design, is also a social worker,” Books for Keeps Executive Director Ruhtie Hortsch said. “She’s been really thoughtful in folding trauma-informed thinking into (Storytellers) training, so that the mentors have a little bit of background to help inform how to have conversations that might come up that would be more difficult.” Timeline by Isabella Gresham
IG: Programmatically, what are your goals for BFK?
RH: I think Stop Summer Slide is core to what we do, and I think that Athens is really core to us. So, we want Stop Summer Slide to always be in all the Clarke County elementary schools. It would be nice to see some growth there. I definitely want to see and think there will be growth for Storytellers, because Storytellers is still exiting this more pilot-y phase, or figuring out what the program design is. Storytellers is really a partnership with the Clarke County School District and Get Comfortable, which is a multi-business initiative that’s spearheaded by Creature Comforts Brewing Company. (It’s) basically a bunch of businesses coming together and saying, ‘We want to have an impact in a very big way (and in) a very focused way.’
IG: With the Clarke County School District being a Title I district, why is BFK important for CCSD schools?
RH: I think literacy is an equity issue, and that ties back to access to resources and access to books not (being) equal. Education is one of the ways that you can get out of poverty, and there’s a cycle there of getting stuck not having a strong education. That’s one of the reasons that Books for Keeps and literacy programs are so important. Part of the reason that Storytellers focuses on third grade is that that’s the moment when schools and (curricula) tend to start expecting kids to learn by reading, and if you’re not reading on-level by third grade, you’re going to start falling behind, so you need that strong foundation to then do any kind of other workforce development. If you’re learning to do anything, being a strong reader can help. If we are serious about economic development in Athens, and making sure that Athens is a strong place for business to thrive, I think literacy has to be a cornerstone of that.
