One teen’s mission to build community through literacy

There is a new nonprofit, led by a teenager aiming to make imaginations soar in a reading rainbow across the area.

Sam Walworth, a Branson High School Sophomore, has spent his summer beginning the story of The Book Tree, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization founded in April by Walworth. The mission of this newly emerging community driven organization: To expand access to books and literacy resources for children and adults, foster a lifelong love of reading, and strengthen communities by branching out to every reader. 

• 

• 

So far, The Book Tree has found homes for two of their stocked book shelves and a place for a new free little library, all of which will be maintained with books by Walworth, his family and anyone who wishes to become a volunteer. 

“I'm a sophomore, and I kind of just do a lot at school. I'm in the band program. I do FBLA. I'm part of Stuco. I’m kind of just a little bit everywhere doing a little bit of everything,” Walworth said. “I grew up surrounded by books and reading was a favorite pastime for me and my family.” 

When Walworth was 11, he started “Beyond the Book,” a preteen book club created to provide dedicated summer programming for readers beyond the age range of the library’s summer reading program. The club went “beyond the book” through lively discussions, activities, and several virtual author visits. In 2025, Walworth started “The Next Chapter” to give teenagers a book club opportunity of their own.

Now Walworth said The Book Tree is the natural progression of his love of reading and his determination to help spread that love to the community. 

“It kind of just seemed like the natural progression of the book clubs, I kind of always wanted to keep on expanding, keep on trying to do more,” Walworth said. “Then there was this meeting for a women's shelter in the area that my mom volunteers with and it kind of just came to me when she was talking about it. What if we try to do something there. Me and my mom kind of just thought through it, and we kind of came on the idea of starting a bookshelf. And as the ideas of that expanded, we decided to start an organization to kind of umbrella all of what all of what we were doing.” Since April, The Book Tree has been able to get more than 1,000 books donated or purchased. “We've actually been really fortunate to have a lot of support at the beginning, so we've already raised over 1,000 books, which is amazing, and we are in three locations right now,” Walworth said. 

The women's shelter is one. The Book Tree also partnered with a church to get them a bookshelf for their K-5th grade Sunday School class. Most recently, Walworth said with some help The Book Tree adopted a park for a new Free Little Library. 

“We just got finished with the new library at Epps Park in Branson,” Walworth said. “We're gonna put the books in the little free library there, and then we're kind of starting talks with some others, but we're always kind of on the lookout for more opportunities for locations already.”

Walworth said he has big aspirations for The Book Tree but he is focused on the small steps first. 

“As of now, we are kind of just working on getting books and bookshelves out. There are general goals, kind of just to encourage literacy in our community, and through that, have the community that we live in just become a lot more tightknit and stronger through literacy,” Walworth said. “I don't really know if I want to go into something like a nonprofit professionally or not. But no matter what I do, I always want to have a service project, like either continue The Book Tree or further on in life start something maybe on a bigger scale, kind of just keeping that as a constant through my life, no matter what else goes on.”

The Book Tree is not defining themselves with specific borders or even age groups for their literacy and book trees. 

“Yeah, we don't really have necessarily defined borders. It's kind of just more of what we can comfortably put our effort into to make sure it's well maintained, to make sure books are stocked. So right now, we are asking the community where the need is and we'll try to be,” Walworth said.

Edee Walworth, Sam’s mom, said she is very proud of his passion for reading and bringing literacy to the community. 

“He has always loved to read. When he did his book clubs at the library he saw how books bring people together,” Edee said. “At 14, he started The Book Tree in hopes to expand and bring even more people together through literacy. We are so proud of him.”

The Book Tree is currently looking for community partners to expand locations. They are accepting donations of new or gentle used books for all ages, as well as financial donations. 

To learn more, volunteer, partner or help The Book Tree grow visit www.the-book-tree.org or visit ‘The Book Tree’ on Facebook.