When the public school system in Salem, Massachusetts was hit with a very large budget deficit, the city decided to layoff eighty members of the school community and to close the school library in order to meet this shortfall. Ten year old Jonathan Marrero overheard his mother talking about this on the phone and was very upset.

The following day, he brought in a box of money that he had been saving for some time and gave it to the librarian with a beautiful note. She was very moved, but could not keep the money and returned it to Jonathan. Word got out about Jonathan’s sacrifice, others were motivated, and a fund was established by city officials to help the schools through this budget crisis.

That weekend Jonathan got his brother and a few friends, made sandwich board signs and went through the neighborhoods of Salem collecting donations to help keep all school libraries open. In three days, Jonathan and his friends collected $1500.00 for the school libraries in Salem.

“We would go out whether it was rain, sleet or snow or any kind of weather. Sometimes I would ask people if they wanted to donate and I’d tell them how the school system needed money to pay teachers and paraprofessionals because we had a big deficit and the libraries might get closed.” Jonathan explains.

He then continued to raise funds selling hot chocolate and homemade lollipops in front of his house during his school vacation and raised another $750.00. A snowfall during the vacation gave Jonathan yet another idea. He went out with his shovel and started a new business and raised another $245.00 for the general fund.

Because of Jonathan’s efforts and those of many other people and businesses in the community, only 33 jobs were lost.

“Jonathan inspired both adults and children to donate their savings, piggy banks and allowances. In our school he is referred to as an activist and he seems to like that title. He has done so much for both the morale and the finances in the Salem Public Schools and he did it all within a period of three weeks! What a huge difference this ten year old boy has made,” says his music teacher Kristine Wilson.

Jonathan also got an opportunity to meet the Governor of Massachusetts Deval Patrick this summer during a grass-roots activism effort.

"I wish we weren't asking 10-year-olds to go out and raise money to keep the librarian in the school," Governor Patrick said to the crowd, and then turned to Jonathan to say "I love that you stepped up."

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