TAMPA, Fla. — A local teenager recently received two Congressional Awards from Representative Kathy Castor, recognizing the work he has done in the community.
Back in 2017, we interviewed Chase Hartman when he was named Florida’s Top Youth Volunteer. Hartman collected thousands of books for local kids.
Since then, he developed a successful non-profit and got more than 200,000 books into local schools for students in Hillsborough County. Recently, he’s been dealing with a new challenge when trying to get books into schools.
“Eco Brothers, Inc. originally started in 2019 as a small book project with me and my brother and my best friend. We started just recycling used books out of my mom’s old warehouse,” said Hartman.
The project they started several years ago has grown exponentially in size and reached tens of thousands of students by 2023.
“When we originally started this book project, I realized that some kids in other parts of the county and even right in my area did not have books in their classroom libraries, and they did not have books in their home,” said Hartman.
Hartman said this year, they ran into roadblocks because of the book challenges and bans across the state.
“This was a big concern for us because a lot of our book deliveries were paused. We weren’t able to donate a lot to schools. They were denying our deliveries," said Hartman. "They were telling us it was too risky to check through all the books and to spend the time to check through every book – every single receipt of the books we were purchasing."
So, Eco Brothers, Inc. had to pivot to continue its mission.
“I don’t want to necessarily push these books into the schools, so a solution that I found right now is to donate to little free libraries,” said Hartman.
He recently won a grant from Riley’s Way Foundation to purchase diverse books to put in little free libraries across the state.
“I think this is a good solution for now. Kids are able to find these in almost every park, in every area,” said Hartman.
The nonprofit also recently picked up books from a middle school and since they cannot donate them to another school right now, the goal is to put them back out in little free libraries.
“I think with these little free libraries and just advocating, I think we can make some changes,” said Hartman.
To learn more about Eco Brothers Inc. and the nonprofit’s mission, click here.
