people &places PEOP LE & P LACES
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Durham Girls’ Book Club StrongHER TogetHER, a nonprofit that offers developmental opportunities for girls, launched its Durham Girls’ Book Club in
April after a youth representative noticed its eighth grade group felt adrift due to the COVID-19 pandemic. After enthusiastically adopting the idea, assembling books and confirming plans, the nonprofit delivered books – “Us, in Progress: Short Stories About Young Latinos” and “The Queen Bee and Me” – to more than 300 girls at 15 schools across Durham in June and July. In August, the club delivered its final book, “The Skin I’m In,” bringing its total books distributed to about 1,000. “It’s incredible to see the girls – many of whom never knew one another before our book club – talking on Slack, laughing on Zoom and connecting through their love of reading,” the nonprofit said in an email. “COVID-19 may have changed our summer, but it has brought us a silver lining, too.”
1 Laura Santeli, 10. 2 McKenzie Graves, 13. 3 Joy Gray, 11. 4 Aniya McNeil, 10, and Yazania McNeil, 13. 5 Karen Hernandez-Pioquinto, 13. 12