Passion & Purpose: Winter 2024/2025
Librarian Sheila Michaels receives annual humanitarian award
Sheila Michaels’ story is one for the books.
Her community service was seen through her time as a school librarian in Nixa, where her innovative efforts helped lead more kids to read. Today it’s told through the BookBag program, which provides families with free books, snacks, hygiene items and school supplies during summer months.
“No one should be without what they need — most of all our kids,” Michaels said, whose work with the program led to her selection as the CFO’s 2024 Humanitarian of the Year. The annual award recognizes individuals in the region who excel at serving others in a humanitarian capacity.
BookBag, a summer reading-and-more initiative, began in 2022. It started to help provide kids in need with supplies over the summer — books, but also food, toiletries and essentials — without stigma.
“Every family wants their kids to have free books,” Michaels said. “I thought, ‘If I can get them here to get the books, we can give them the snacks. We can give them their travel kit for the summer, which is hygiene items. We can give period kits away.”
And they did: Through a series of pop-up events and community partnerships, the program served more than 260 kids in 2024.
“I don’t know which would be worse: To be the child that has to show up to the first day of school with an empty backpack, or to be the mother at home that had to send them to school with an empty backpack,” Michaels said upon accepting her award. “But no one should have to feel that, and I don’t want anyone to feel that in my community.”
The BookBag program cascaded from Michaels’ time as a librarian within the Nixa school district, where she served both elementary and high school students. She worked to reach kids where they were, whether that was by providing reading materials for those whose first language wasn’t English to connecting students with unique resources in the face of a global pandemic.
An example of the latter was the BookBox program, which began in the 2019–20 school year. Enrolled students could get a hand-picked book tailored to their interests, a snack and a surprise in a cardboard box.
“When I think about Sheila Michaels, librarian and equity and diversity advocate, I know she is a servant leader and the best example of a humanitarian I have ever met,” wrote Haylee Anderson, the educator and instructional specialist who nominated Michaels for the award. “She has invested her blood, sweat, tears, time, money, effort and passion into making Christian County a more accessible place for its residents.”
The Humanitarian award isn’t the first time Michaels has been recognized for her work. Her other honors include being named to the American Library Association’s 2022 Class of Emerging Leaders. The Missouri Association of School Librarians also named Michaels its inaugural School Librarian of the Year in 2024.
By Kaitlyn McConnell · This essay is featured in the winter 2024/2025 edition of Passion & Purpose
