Sharing the love: Kids’ Book Bank founder shifts focus to supplying resources to those in need
When volunteer activist Judy Payne co-founded the Kids’ Book Bank in 2016, she and co-founder Judi Kovach were on a mission to distribute books to children living in “book deserts” and foster literacy among Cleveland’s youth.
Today, The Kids’ Book Bank is thriving—working with community partners to install 17 book collection sites, hold regular book drives, and instill a lifelong love of reading in the region’s schoolchildren.
Corie Friedman and Ashley Fisher from Fostering Hope looking for good at the Goods Bank NEOAfter stepping down as Kids’ Book Bank executive director in 2019, in early 2021 Payne was hit with the notion that she was in a position to help people find needed resources they might otherwise not be able to access.
“I thought, what can I do, as someone with privilege, to help all the changemakers in our community who are trying to make a change for the betterment of others,” she recalls. “Basically, I wanted to use my privilege for the benefit of our community. There are so many doing so much, yet they don’t have access to some of the resources I do.”
In September last year, Payne opened the doors to Goods Bank NEO on Bittern Avenue in the St. Clair Superior neighborhood to help area nonprofit organizations that help people in need secure basic resources—like clothing, shoes, hygiene products, furniture, beds, and other home goods—and provide them to nonprofits for a token fee.
“Six billion pounds of new goods end up in landfills each year,” Payne notes. “Most of what we have [at Goods Bank NEO] would end up in landfills, but instead they’re being redirected.”
Back in early 2021, Payne began thinking of forming a clearinghouse where grassroots organizations could be connected with the tangible resources they needed. When researching the concept, she stumbled on to Good360—an international organization that partners with some of the world’s largest corporations to source essential goods and distribute them through the nonprofits that support people in need.
She wanted to become a community redistribution partner, but since she didn’t have an existing organization, a warehouse, or funds, the answer was no.
Payne contacted retired commercial realtor Scott Garson (who is now Goods Bank NEO board chair) about finding a warehouse with a loading dock. “He is just environmentally conscious—he recycles, composts, or uses Rust Belt Riders,” Payne says of Garson, who did end up finding her warehouse space.
By April 2022, Good360 had approved Goods Bank NEO as a redistribution partner, and Payne and Garson had found a warehouse at 7550 Bittern Ave. She got the
“I knew I could do this, I knew it would make a difference,” she says, “but I didn’t really know how fast this would happen.”
The Centers, which offers health and wellness, family support, and workforce development service, was Good Bank NEO’s first nonprofit member to sign up. Members must be established for at least two years and pay $100 annual membership fees to register up to four shoppers to find supplies for clients in the warehouse.
So far, 80 nonprofit members have joined Goods Bank NEO, including organizations like Fostering Hope, University Settlement, New Bridge Cleveland, the YWCA of Greater Cleveland’s A Place 4 Me, and CHN Housing Partners, just to name a few, with additional organizations joining every week.
And 130 volunteers have signed on to help make sure the distributions run smoothly. The Goods Bank has already distributed 30,872 items, but Payne points out that single diaper or a single diaper wipe is counted as one item, as is a huge box of toys.
“Suffice it to say, we've distributed a lot in a short amount of time,” she says, adding that she knew this was her mission in life once her children were grown and she was no longer caring for her own mother.
Payne also notes that her self-designed major University of Michigan was social change. “I feel like I was born with an oversized empathy gene,” she says.
To donate goods or funds or to volunteer, go the Goods Bank NEO Get Involved page.
