Zara Singh

Zara Singh was born in Chicago, Illinois and now lives just outside the city in a suburb called Oak Brook, Illinois. Zara is a student at Butler Junior High School and is 12 years old and in the 7th grade. Zara has always been active in community service, especially after having participated in Northwestern University's Civic Weekend which exposed her to the poor conditions in many Chicago schools and homeless shelters.

In the summer of 2010, Zara read the book Three Cups of Tea by Greg Mortenson, which is a true story that follows Mr. Mortenson as he visits a small village in Afghanistan and thereafter begins building schools and libraries for children across the country. Zara's belief was that there were many schools and children in Chicago that faced similar challenges and that could benefit from having access to books and libraries. That's when she formed Project Books in Need which seeks to collect books and donations to help underserved Chicago schools and neighborhoods build library collections. So far, Project Books in Need has nearly completed a library collection for the Passages Charter School in Chicago which serves immigrant and minority students in the north side of Chicago. Zara and the advisors to Project Books in Need are currently reviewing other schools for their next project.

Zara has always loved the quote from Gandhi "Be the change you wish to see in the world" and believes that if we all just take one action a day we can truly make a difference.