Our names are Ally and Alex Linsky, and we are juniors at the IB program at Robinson. We started a non-profit organization called Endless Learning to collect and distribute books that are no longer available at Tampa area schools.
Currently in the State of Florida, topics such sexual orientation and gender identity have been censored within public school curriculum. This affected us since we were currently enrolled in AP Psychology. The AP Psychology course has been taken out of all curriculums in the state of Florida due to its discussion of gender identity and sexual orientation. However, it has been reinstated within compliance of Florida Laws. Certain counties in the state of Florida have also cut out works of Shakespeare in consideration SB1069. We believe that the censorship of these topics is damaging to all students because of the amount of historical significance encapsulated by these important topics. A variety of books have been removed all across different counties in the State of Florida. The issue we take exception with is the control of access to knowledge. The force of these new laws and political pressure enable a lack of diversified thinking. Teachers are now forced to misrepresent the reality of issues and controversial topics that are so prevalent within society, and therefore the perspective of students is now limited. Many members within our community do not have access to books if they are not available at their schools. We wanted to able to impact our community positively and be activists within the Greater Tampa Area. It is important that as the future, we are able to see a prevalent issue within our area and to inform. We have established profit partners within the Tampa Area that are willing to take our donations. We are also partnered with Tombolo Books and have an online registry with them. Lastly, we are corporate partners with Little Free Library as they are helping us widen our audience.