YOUNGSTOWN — Taft Elementary School has implemented a variety of programs to promote literacy, and thanks to Maranda Callahan, the school will have a lot more books for the same purpose — 1,310, to be precise.

“I’ve done field work for a literacy class all throughout the Youngstown City Schools,” Callahan, 20, of West Middlesex, Pa., said. “Friends did field work at Taft, and it felt good to give books here.”

Callahan, a Youngstown State University sophomore majoring in primary education, was at the school, 730 E. Avondale Ave., on the South Side, on Tuesday morning to deliver numerous boxes totaling 1,310 books, the vast majority of which are targeted for students in kindergarten through grade five.

Callahan, whose career goal is to be an elementary school teacher, began collecting the books in mid-May via placing donation boxes at many businesses in her hometown and nearby Hermitage, Pa. She also posted on Facebook information about her charitable effort, a move that generated further interest and donations.

In addition, she left the boxes at their locations each time after they had filled, and periodically checked for additional donations, Callahan recalled.

“I got a little bit of everything,” she said.

The books cover fiction, children’s literature and several other genres, and include math- and literacy-related workbooks. Titles include “Frosty the Snowman,” “Diary of a Wimpy Kid” by Jeff Kinney, Lois Duncan’s “News for Dogs” and the 2005 paperback “Luke Goes to Bat” by illustrator and author Rachel Isadora.

Callahan explained that the project’s impetus was learning in her class about statistics that compare literacy rates of students with and those without such resources in their homes. Another driving force was having studied about the problem of illiteracy in children and adults, a situation she called “eye-opening.”

She also examined the correlation between literacy rates and those who drop out of school or are incarcerated.

In addition, Callahan views literacy in a holistic manner, noting that in addition to reading comprehension, it includes speaking and listening — all valuable skills to increase the likelihood of student success.

“Literacy is a bigger deal than people think,” she observed.

“This will give (our students) multiple opportunities for them to take (books) home,” Principal Tod Morris said.

He noted that Taft Elementary hosts family events in which students’ family members can take books to build their own libraries at home as a means to promote literacy. The school also has 15- to 20-minute read-along events that entail using books “light on print” to tell a story — something that’s akin to “your old-fashioned story time,” Morris explained.

Callahan said she intends to build on the success of her book-donation project next summer, though the details are a bit murky. One possibility is to spearhead a school-supply drive, she added.