“Freedom Through Literacy”
Est. 2010 in memory of Judith F. Krug
Spread the word about Judith’s Reading Room’s 2019 Freedom Through Literacy Award by sharing and posting our flyer. Please download the flyer to print
June 12, 2025 — Judith’s Reading Room announced today that it will establish a curated library of exceptional literature written or illustrated by Indigenous people — mainly Navajo but also including dozens of enrolled citizens from tribes across the United States. The inauguration of the Judith’s Reading Room library to serve the 128,000 Navajo people will establish its first-ever Tribal Community Library in Chinle, AZ.
Chinle Planting Hope (CPH), a local Arizona nonprofit, was selected as one of 15 libraries to be dedicated as a part of the organization’s “15 Libraries to Celebrate Our 15th Anniversary in 2025.” Judith’s Reading Room has supported CHP since 2020 by donating 500 children’s books for its READ in Beauty Bookmobile.
June 3, 2025 — Judith’s Reading Room, the global literacy nonprofit organization based in eastern Pennsylvania, continued its “15 Libraries to Celebrate its 15th Anniversary in 2025” library installations on three continents. A Scottish non-profit and two primary schools in Nepal and South Africa will receive curated book collections hand-picked to inspire a love of reading and to allow a culture of reading to catapult children and adults alike into a lifetime relationship with literature.
June 3, 2025 — Judith’s Reading Room, the global literacy nonprofit organization based in eastern Pennsylvania, continued its “15 Libraries to Celebrate its 15th Anniversary in 2025” by today installing its latest collection of books for teens at Heavy Sound, the Scottish nonprofit located near Edinburgh in the village of Cockenzie, Scotland. Heavy Sound, founded by Jordan Butler, works with some of Scotland’s most vulnerable and disconnected teens with poor to no literacy.
May 6, 2025 — A chance encounter on a flight from New York to San Francisco in 2017 found Cathy Leiber, President, Judith’s Reading Room of Pennsylvania and Professor Tissa Wijeratne, Senior Neurologist and Chair, Migraine Foundation of Australia seated next to each other. Within minutes they discovered that they shared a passion for literacy, coming at it from wildly different perspectives. The five-hour flight was filled with discussions of brain health, literacy, education and the role that reading plays in lifting people out of poverty. Their conversation resulted eight years later in a shared commitment to establish a library in Dr. Tissa’s home country, Sri Lanka. This epitomizes how a Judith’s Reading Room library materializes “out of thin air.”
April 15, 2025 — Judith’s Reading Room promised retired RN Joyce Edwards that she would receive 151 brand new children’s books from the eastern Pennsylvania nonprofit to create a first-ever library at her new day care center in Holcomb, Mississippi serving 67 children. Three months later, one box of books is still “missing” in Memphis, TN.
April 4, 2025 —Judith’s Reading Room, the global literacy nonprofit organization founded in 2010 in the memory of Judith F. Krug, a distinguished American librarian and cousin to the organization’s founders, announced its latest donation of young adult (YA) and Graphic Novels to ‘Harkins House,’ a nationally recognized model program and short-term temporary residential shelter located in Hillsboro, Oregon near Portland.