Patrick Good and E Achurch are both high school students living in Beaufort, South Carolina. While they come from different backgrounds and schools, both Good and Achurch are student leaders in the Diversity Awareness Youth Literacy Organization (DAYLO). Founded in 2021, DAYLO has expanded to include chapters across South Carolina, including 5 chapters in Beaufort County. As the only Right to Read Network (RNN) affiliate in South Carolina, DAYLO prides itself on its commitment to student leadership and fostership of empathy through reading diverse books and pro-literacy advocacy.
Daylo Advocate E Achurch
Both Good and Achurch joined DAYLO their freshman year of high school. Achurch maintains that she was introduced to DAYLO during eighth grade by a friend who took her to an event. Growing up, she was an avid reader; she decided to join DAYLO after speaking with the group’s co-mentors Claire Bennett and Jonathan Haupt.
“Seeing what these students like me were doing to spark change and empower others really helped me to see that I was not powerless in this situation,” Achurch said. “ I could advocate for myself and others as well.”
While the organization was founded before any book challenges came before the Beaufort County School Board, DAYLO responded quickly to challenges against 97 books in the district during the 2022-2023 school year. Last year, the South Carolina Library Association awarded DAYLO the Intellectual Freedom Award for their advocacy. Given DAYLO’s advocacy, both Achurch and Good have had interaction with other RNN chapters, most frequently Students Engaged in Advancing Texas (SEAT).
“Interacting with other [RNN] organizations is encouraging because it shows you that this is happening in other places,” Good said. “It is a nice refresher even to see advocats like D’Taveyon or Cameron on social media and know I am not alone.”
Daylo Advocate Patrick Good
Achurch is founder and President of her school’s chapter while Good is Vice President of his school’s chapter. Both do not necessarily have a set schedule for DAYLO, however, one can likely find them at the Teddy Bear Picnic. On the first Saturday of every month, DAYLO hosts this event where student volunteers read-aloud diverse, inclusive picnic books to children and their families. When dozens of book challenges came before their county’s school board, however, Good’s schedule included a lot more advocacy work.
“For a solid seven months, my weekly schedule was a school board meeting every other Tuesday and Thursday, opposite weeks,” Good said. “We’d have a planning meeting, we’d have dinner at one of our friends’ houses, and we’d have ice cream because we are high schoolers–ice cream and caffeine is what we run on.”
From late night planning meetings (complete with a side of ice cream) to Teddy Bear Picnics, DAYLO both builds community for the students a part of it and sponsors education for the local community around it. Achurch notes that one of DAYLO’s biggest concerns is the Department of Education’s “End DEI” portal, which allows for parents, teachers, and community members to submit “reports of discrimination based on race or sex in publicly-funded K-12 schools.”
“At least half of these books targeted are written by or mention LGBTQ people, another half talk about BIPOC people,” said Achurch. “These books being labeled inappropriate just shows the lack of empathy going into these bans.”
Even with the pushback coming from conservative majorities in both the United States federal government and their home state of South Carolina, Good and Achurch are committed to fighting book bans and following the three pillars of DAYLO. These pillars include encouraging diverse perspectives and empathy through reading, community service, and advocacy.
“I never intended to be an advocate when I joined DAYLO, I intended to become a more empathetic person, and then my right to become a more empathetic person was removed from me,” said Good.
To Learn More about Daylo, visit their linktree, and to view their Youth Advocacy Guide