Co-Founder & Executive Director of Start Lighthouse

Rina Madhani honored as one of Crain's 40 Under 40

OUR WORK

Redefining Access and Destiny

Literacy Hubs

Reviving defunct library spaces in Title I schools

Our permanent learning spaces bring students, teachers, families, and authors together to raise reading levels, increase comprehension, and close the literacy gap through daily programming. Resident authors and illustrators lead interactive workshops, encouraging and enabling students to build their own home libraries.

Literary Adventures

Empowering students to build their own first-time home libraries

Award-winning authors and illustrators conduct extended and immersive experiences for the student body. Our readers then curate a library for themselves to reflect their culturally diverse lives and communities.

Literacy Activists

Centering social justice within our literacy curriculum

This pop-up program supports teachers in building inclusive learning environments to discuss racism, identity, and multiculturalism in a developmentally appropriate and relevant way.

Testimonials

  • Lasting Literacy Culture

    "Start Lighthouse has imbued a lasting literacy culture in our school. My students have a love of reading, now more than ever before. Start Lighthouse's programming is transforming my students into tomorrow's changemakers and activists."

    -Principal Danielle Keane, P.S. 5 Port Morris

  • Lifelong Readers

    "Start Lighthouse is paving a strong path forward by revitalizing literacy culture in our community and building home libraries with culturally-responsive literature. Start Lighthouse's literacy programming enables our children to grow into lifelong readers."

    -Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, NY-14

  • Seeing myself as a character

    "The joyous environment of the Literacy Hub leaves me breathless. Here, my sisters can read books that show them the beauty within their hair. I love seeing girls like me as a character. I was once a five-year-old girl yearning for diversity and now we have access to books telling the stories of our communities too. This is because of Start Lighthouse."

    -Mariah, Student

Become a Volunteer.

Help us excite children about reading.

Join our community advancing childhood literacy. Whether you assist with daily programming or read with young bookworms at a Literacy Hub, you help make it possible.

Volunteer