Our story + Pictures of our progress

Books for Boots was founded by and is directed by Melissa Singletary. We are a small group of volunteers that all have military family members, both active duty and veterans. 

Our story began in early 2023. To read a more in depth version, please check our our article published with Red Stick Moms in July 2023: 

https://redstickmom.com/books-for-boots-providing-comfort-to-injured-recruits/ 

We also shared our story in a podcast that aired in July 2025:

https://www.buzzsprout.com/2266919/episodes/17192902 

We started when our oldest daughter, Mackayla was injured at basic training. It was during her stay in a recovery unit that she called home and requested books because there were few on hand for injured recruits. This led to research revealing the need for items in several locations and because of this, we started the nonprofit. 

Within a year of operation, we realized that we could serve more military members because of the overwhelming amount of items coming in almost daily so we decided to start additional programs to serve all military members. Check out our active programs: https://booksforboots.org/programs 

Our injured recruit program is always at the heart of our operations because of our daughter.  We've seen a recovery unit filled with injured recruits and know first hand just how important it is to support these units, recruits, and their leadership members. Our goals for our Injured Recruit Program is to provide basic training medical rehabilitation units for injured recruits with, at the bare minimum; 500 books, 150 movies, 75 music CD’s, and numerous crafts. After each location has received this amount, the goal is to provide another increment in each and / or maintenance shipments every month to keep inventory at a desired level. This ensures that every recruit has the opportunity to have a good book to read during the wait for doctor appointments, that they have a good selection of movies to choose from for good behavior rewards, CD’s to listen to in the squad bay, and crafts to do on extra down time. 

Please follow us and our events through our Facebook page: www.facebook.com/booksforboots