Boy Brings Comfort With Big Book Drive
by Diocese of Des Moines | November 25, 2025
On a cold February day, 10-year-old Joseph Schmedding, of Council Bluffs, was watching a news broadcast on TV while visiting his maternal grandma.
A report on North Carolina’s struggle to recover from the devastating 2024 Hurricane Helene aired. It dropped historic rainfall that caused landslides and severe flooding resulting in more than 100 deaths in the state. The news moved young Joseph.
“I was so sad,” he said. He’d traveled through that area while going to his paternal grandparents who live in South Carolina. “I just thought I had to do something.”
Joseph wondered how children like him would be able to get library books.
Grandma Monica Sciortino, of St. Peter Parish in Council Bluffs, suggested he send books to children in the storm-struck area.
The fourth grader’s desire to help other children, and his parents’ and grandparents’ desire to teach their children how to help others, became a community-wide effort.
Tables for book collections went up at St. Albert Catholic School, where Joseph is a student, and at Corpus Christi and St. Patrick Churches.
“It was more successful than I thought it would be,” Joseph said.
Children’s books, Bibles (“I’m very happy about that,” he said), young adult books and a few adult books piled up. The Knights of Columbus, Serra Club of Council Bluffs, Corpus Christi’s Altar Society, and other community members donated a total of $1,300 for postage.
In May, the Schmedding family – Kathleen, Neil, little brother Henry and Grandma Sciortino -- took 11 boxes of books to the U.S. Postal Service and shipped them to a community in North Carolina. Another six boxes of books will go to Ukraine.
“I don’t know what I expected but I definitely didn’t expect it to be this successful,” said Joseph. “I thought we were only going to get 10 boxes and I was very wrong. There are not many times in my life when I’ve been proud to be wrong, but that time I was very happy that I was wrong!”
The book drive brought the community together to put their faith into action.
“It’s important that people remember we’re here to serve, not be served,” Sciortino said. “I think it’s important that kids learn that there’s more to life than getting things for yourself. You need to share what you have.”
Joseph might be 10 years old (almost 11, he says) but he seems wise beyond his years when asked about the impact he has on others.
“I can’t go down there and say, ‘Make my thing have an impact.’ I can’t do that. That’s not how it works,” he said. “I can hope that I can make at least one person smile.”
With the book drive wrapped up, Joseph, now in fifth grade, is already eyeing what he might do next, perhaps a food drive.
“I’ll end with a quote,” he said. “I don’t remember who wrote it. It had a big impact on me. ‘Be kind whenever possible for it is always possible.’ What I think that means or what it should mean is try to help people. Be kind because it will not only make the person you’re being kind to feel good, it will also make you feel good.”