Brooklyn Book Bodega, a nonprofit organization dedicated to providing books to children across New York City, has been awarded the 2025 Spark Prize from Brooklyn Org. The $100,000 prize will help the organization ensure every child has access to a personal library, promote literacy and ensure children have a lifelong love of reading.
Founded in 2018 by Rebecca Cohen and Seema Aghera, Brooklyn Book Bodega works to eliminate “book deserts,” or areas where there is one book for every 300 residents. The organization’s goal is to create "100+ book homes" throughout the city, providing books to children in underserved neighborhoods.
Since its founding, the organization, with the support of individual donors and publishers, has distributed more than 500,000 books to 190,000 residents.
In an interview with BK Reader, Cohen said winning the 2025 Spark Prize reaffirms the importance of Brooklyn Book Bodega's work. “It validates our work in the city and in Brooklyn, and says that literacy is an issue of all of us and if we can work on it together in community, we can do better,” she said.
Aghera added: “We believe that the Spark Prize will also help us continue our work and leave books in all the places and spaces where kids and families are spending time so that books are within an arm’s reach of families and accessing book ownership is not a barrier for them."
Cohen also emphasized the long-term impact of childhood literacy.
“Kids who have read, kids who have access to books, on average, attain three more years of education and with that, their financial attainment– they earn more. Those benefits are huge and we want them for as many New Yorkers as possible,” she said.
Aghera explained the organization’s focus on engaging families to foster a love of reading and improve literacy rates among children in grades 3-8. She said involving families helped make the reading experience more holistic and enjoyable for the little ones.
“We bring families together to provide joy around reading and access to books for their home libraries. We provide all of our books to home libraries at no cost,” she said.
