Immokalee girl who lost books during Irma receives big surprise

A fourth grader with a passion for reading received a surprise six months after Hurricane Irma damaged all of her books.

Big Rig Books, a nonprofit organization that provides books to underprivileged children, provided 10-year-old Mariela Hernandez and other children in Immokalee with a truck-load selection of books.

“It makes me smart and I understand the words and the vocabulary,” Hernandez said.

The giant truck has been spreading the gift of literacy for six years, carrying approximately 7,000 books on board, according to spokeswoman Kathy Gervase.

“We thought we wanted to give back since we’ve been blessed and figured we wanna give books to kids,” Gervase said. “For all of us that have been blessed with books at home, we need to think of others who don’t have these things.”

For more information about Big Rig Books, click here.