Lily Wahl is no ordinary 11-year-old. A seventh-grade student at Jackson Memorial Middle School, Lily is an active member of jazz band, speech and debate club, and Power of the Pen. She’s also a peer tutor, a member of the student council and an active student at East Coast Martial Arts. To top off her impressive list of extracurricular activities, Lily also loves to share her passion for reading.  

For the past few years, Lily has been actively collecting and donating hundreds of books to Jayani’s Treasure Chest – a program through the Aultman Foundation which provides toys to children of all ages when they are admitted to the hospital or are undergoing a procedure at Aultman or any satellite locations.

After being awarded a grant of $500 from the Junior League of Stark County in December of 2016, this Canton Repository’s Kid of Character worked with Scholastic’s Reading Club & Book Fairs to purchase 409 books for her most recent donation – and she’s not stopping there.

With her birthday coming up during the summer months, Lily is just now beginning her campaign for more books to collect.

Every year since her eighth birthday, Lily has asked her friends and family to donate books rather than buy her birthday presents. At the end of the season, she delivers the books to Aultman with her family. Since 2013, she’s donated a total of 1,991 books.

In addition to stocking Jayani’s Treasure Chest – which is the program that inspired Lily to begin giving – some of her books will also support the Reach out and Read Program. Reach Out and Read is both a children’s literacy and a parental engagement program. Physicians at Aultman Medical Group’s Canton Family Medicine promote early literacy during well-child visits beginning at just six months old. Each child is given a book to take home, with the physician giving guidance to the parent on the importance of reading to their children.

To learn more about the programs Lily has donated to, or how to get involved yourself, click here.