Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Kati Johnston and Casey Truglio. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.
Kati and Casey, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Let’s jump right into how you came up with the idea?
The idea came to us organically upon seeing the environment created by policy makers towards education. Once we saw how many books were removed from school shelves, we decided to place books throughout the community via Little Free Libraries to make sure students still had access to literature. As former educators ourselves, we felt like this is our way of giving back and having a positive community impact outside the classroom.
Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.
What inspired us to create our organization was our conviction that everyone has the right to access literature. Rebel Readers is an organization that contributes multicultural and historically challenged reading to Free Little Libraries in Northeastern Florida and beyond, enabling parents and kids in grades K–12 to have free access to literature. Our mission is to promote reading and literacy in the community by supplying challenged, multicultural, and banned literature, in hopes of igniting curiosity and empowering people to do independent research while finding books they love.
As former educators we understand the catastrophic effect removing books would have one education. We saw first hand in our school that literacy is declining. Students are less interested in reading now more than ever due to our tech reliant world. Our way of encouraging our youth to read is by providing books that represent them, their culture, and their struggles. We want people in our community to feel and be seen, and representation in literature helps with that.
Community is vital to what we do. We work with a lot of local community businesses and organizations to share this vision of inclusion such as Femme Fire Books, Vagabond Coffee Company, The Station in San Marco, The Girl Scouts of America – Gateway Council, CISV, and more.
Can you tell us the story behind how you met your business partner?
Stranger than fiction from Casey’s POV:
I was brand new to Florida and teaching when I met Kati at the K-8 school in Duval County where we both taught 6th grade; she taught science and I taught ELA. As the 6th grade team lead, Kati would come into my classroom to observe and provide coaching as needed. I genuinely appreciated her taking the initiative to help me develop as an educator because I didn’t realize it then, but she was foregoing her planning period to make sure the students and I were as prepared as possible. The students LOVED her, and they were vocal about their feelings. One day I saw her leading them to the cafeteria for lunch wearing a full length black robe with a witch hat. She looked like she could be cast in a Harry Potter movie, and it was then I realized our brands of weird matched up and we were going to be friends. We shared students and had such a blast teaching them that year, despite all of the challenges of COVID and mobile learning.
Are there any books, videos, essays or other resources that have significantly impacted your management and entrepreneurial thinking and philosophy?
Casey: Atlas of the Heart by Brene Brown was eye opening in the way that it provides so much insight into experiences and emotions people experience and how we are all interconnected through our humanness. I lead with empathy and understanding, as I myself would want to be led. For me it is not necessarily one just one book, or video, but a collection of everything I have read, watched, and learned over the course of my life that has shaped how I lead.
Kati: I share a similar sentiment with Casey in that it’s not necessarily one book. but a collection that has shaped who I am and what I believe in. I think when the right book at the right time finds the right hands it can truly be life changing, or in my case life-saving. One book that I hold near to my heart is The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky. Although the book is banned in schools now, it found me in high school when many of us are so lost. Reading Charlie’s letters made me feel as though I wasn’t lost, rather I was finding my way. Rebel Readers is a way for us to ensure everyone has the opportunity to find the book that might just save them.
Contact Info:
- Website: Rebelreaders.org
- Instagram: rebelreadersflorida
- Youtube: youtube.com/@Rebelreaders