Buffalo Grove youth driven to help other kids with book drive

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Stephen Cohn (left) and Daniel Mortge stack books that Cohn collected. Many of the books have been sent to a hospital in Puerto Rico. (Photo courtesy of the Cohn family)

Updated: January 23, 2012 2:39AM

A Buffalo Grove boy is spending his summer trying to make one distant corner of the world a better place — someplace that he visited once, and hopes he never sees again.

“I always thought, after something bad happens, that you could bring up something good,” Stephen Cohn said.

And something bad happened to Cohn, who will be a Stevenson High School freshman this fall, which is why he spent most of this year’s spring break hospitalized in Puerto Rico. But during that stay, he saw that his fellow wards in the pediatric wing had almost nothing in the way of entertainment. Now safe at home, Cohn has sent his new program’s first shipment of books and DVDs back to University Pediatric Hospital of Centro Medico.

“There were minimal amounts of books,” he said. “They couldn’t even provide you with pillows and blankets. They didn’t have much.”

Cohn spent about a week in April in University Pediatric Hospital of Centro Medico in Rio Piedras, Puerto Rico after suffering a bleeding ulcer during his family’s cruise of the Caribbean. He saw that his fellow youngsters had little to occupy their minds while stuck in beds. Each room had a television, but only a few DVDs and just as few books.

Cohn decided that he wanted to make the place a more enjoyable stay for individuals who would follow him. After recovering and returning to Buffalo Grove, he started a book drive dubbed Libros 4 Ninos, gathering tomes from his school community at Aptakisic Junior High.

The effort presented a few obstacles, of course. For one, Puerto Rico is primarily a Spanish-speaking nation.

“It was difficult to get Spanish books,” Cohn said.

Fortunately, most Puerto Rican children start learning English in first grade, making his collection viable. Another problem, though, was boxing up and storing everything the drive gathered.

“I felt really proud, once we got up to 1,500,” Cohn said.

And his father, Mitch, said they also felt really cramped.

“We’ve got cases in the garage stacked up to the ceiling,” he said.

Cohn enlisted his friend, fellow SHS freshman Daniel Mortge, to get everything packed up and ready for shipment, and sent the first batch, totaling 1,583 books and DVDs, to three beneficiaries: University Pediatric, Bernie’s Book Bank in Lake Forest, and Reach Out and Read in Chicago.

Now, Cohn is conducting a second drive and — at the behest of his former teachers — probably another this fall at Aptakisic.

“All the hard work is paying off,” Cohn said.