Peninsula Teenager Leads Youth Literacy Campaign
REDWOOD CITY (KPIX 5) Ryan Traynor is a high school sophomore who is reaching thousands of children in the Redwood City area. His message: the importance of education.
At the Redwood City Public Library, 16-year-old Ryan Traynor trains teenagers on money matters, like how to take out a loan.
"What were the conditions for you so you could borrow the item?" he quizzed the class at a recent session.
Traynor leads his Money Smarts class twice a month. Every year, he teaches about 1300 what his parents have taught him.
"If you ask half the kids in America what a credit score was, they'd be like, 'What? I don't know what that means,'" Traynor said.
But the finance classes are only part of the story when it comes to how much Traynor does for his community. He also designs, and teaches, free hands-on STEM classes at the Redwood City library for low-income students. He hosts board game days, and gives donated games to local shelters. He's recruited dozens of volunteers.
But he himself got hooked on community service when he read to preschoolers to earn a Boy Scout merit badge. After reading to the kids he gave each of them a new book that was donated to the library. It was then that he realized the value of a single book.
"When you give a kid a book, you see their face light up," Traynor explained. "Many of these kids didn't have any books at all. That one book was the only book they had in their entire life."
He created a Youth Literacy Council in 2013 as part of his Eagle Scout project. Nine teenagers from different high schools organize events at the Redwood City Library to promote reading. The library children's program director Jan Pedden watched Traynor take the helm.
"That started the amazing book drive where he collected more than 20,000 books," Pedden remembered.
Library Executive Director Derek Wolfgram calls the teenager a go-getter.
"(He) writes the grant, and gets the grant, and organizes the program and he's just talent beyond his years," Wolfgram said.
Traynor added, "You get this satisfaction from helping people that you can't get from anything else in the entire world."
So for leading volunteer projects serving thousands of San Mateo County students, this week's Jefferson Award in the Bay Area goes to Ryan Traynor.
