Five years into the Flint water crisis and literacy is one way to help mediate some of the negative effects children are experiencing due to lead exposure. The Flint Kids Book is one-way high school author and public health advocate Olivia Holden is making a difference. Donate online. 

January 29, 2020

Through her Health Equity Research Summer Scholarship program at the Flint Center for Health Equity Solutions, Olivia Holden penned The Flint Kids Book to provide positive messaging to Flint children while expanding early literacy efforts. This effort is crucial to the growth and development of Flint Kids. According to the Michigan Department of Education, reading proficiency of Flint Kids dropped from 41.8% in 2014 to 10.7% in 2017.

Throughout the traumatic experience of the Flint water crisis, the national portrayal of Flint and Flint kids has been negative and adverse to the growth of Flint kids. To address plummeting literacy rates and misconceptions in the media, Holden worked with Flint kids at the Community Outreach for Family & Youth (COFY) summer camp to identify words, phrases, and images that empower Flint kids while portraying them how they want to be perceived.

This project celebrates what makes Flint Kids special in a world that speaks about them as disadvantaged, left-behind, and unimportant. The Flint Kids Book is written to motivate Flint kids to read more while empowering them with positive messaging developed for Flint kids and by Flint kids.

Your support will help get The Flint Kids book into the hands of Flint children.
Buy a book, give a book: for every $20 donation or higher, donors will be mailed a signed copy of The Flint Kids Book.

The funds collected will be used to supply copies of The Flint Kids book in the newborn bundle at MSU Hurley Children’s Hospital Pediatric Public Health Initiative, and also to local area schools, churches, and libraries.

Donate online. 

Ebony Stith, Flint Registry and Olivia Holden, Author, Flint Kids Book