The students at Jensen Elementary School truly have received a special delivery.

Ryan Maloney and his family lost everything in Hurricane Katrina – and after several moves – they settled in Coppell, a community in the Dallas-Fort Worth area. As part of an Education In Action service project, he wanted to do something to help schoolchildren affected by Hurricane Ike. A person at his brother’s elementary school mentioned that homes of the children at Jensen Elementary in Pasadena received major damage.

“I know exactly how they feel,” Maloney said. “I needed to do something to help and to bring a smile to their faces.”

He then started his mission to spread hope to the students at Jensen – one book at a time.

“He was determined to provide a book to every boy and girl at the school,” said Allison Maloney, Ryan’s mother.

The 13-year-old Coppell ISD middle school student was in constant contact with Candy Bernsen, who was Jensen’s principal until being named the new leader of South Belt Elementary. Maloney also stayed in touch with current Jensen principal Judy Diaz in seeking the needs of the students.

Maloney started seeking donations from the community and even his former home of New Orleans for elementary-aged student. However, that was only the beginning.

Once he received enough books for the every student at Jensen, Maloney sorted more than 800 books by each grade level, class and gender.

“It’s just amazing the amount of time and care that this young man put into this project,” said Bernsen.

After the books were separated by classes for each student, Maloney and his brother, Peyton, created bookmarks to give to every child at the school.

In mid-February, Maloney and his family made the 300-mile journey to Pasadena to personally deliver the books to the students.

“What Ryan has done is simply incredible,” Diaz said. “He unselfishly gave of his time for the past several months just to help our students. It’s just amazing.”

When Maloney and his family arrived at the school, they were greeted with open arms by Diaz and Bernsen. Then, they unloaded a van that was full of boxes of books, separated by grade level and class.

Maloney and his brother went to every single classroom and talked to the students and presented them with books and bookmarks. He shared his story with the students about how Hurricane Katrina affected his life – and he wanted to give reassurance to the students.

“I wanted to let them know everything will be okay and there was someone thinking about what they went through,” he said.

After surprising students in all of the classes, Maloney’s last stop was in one of the kindergarten classrooms. The students cheered, smiled and waved their books as they were handed to them. The students were so excited that they gathered around Maloney for a picture.

“This is a moment all of these children will never forget,” Diaz said. “They will remember back about the boy who traveled all the way from Dallas to bring books to each one of them. This is something that will stay with them for a lifetime.”