Student’s donation increases accessibility, choice at Aurora Public Library

September 24, 2026 · 0 Comments

John Chlorakos is a regular patron at the Aurora Public Library.

An Oak Ridges resident who lives with cerebral palsy, Chlorakos is a big fan of audible books. Now, he’s paying it forward by donating more than $1,000 worth of books from VOX Publishing to the Aurora Public Library (APL).

VOX publishes a wide array of children’s books for individual consumers and libraries alike. What sets them apart is just inside the cover of each volume is a button which reads the book aloud, allowing the reader to follow along.

They not only help consumers master the fine art of reading but increase accessibility for book lovers of all abilities.

The books are a hot commodity at APL and Victoria Dillon, the APL’s Manager of Collections and Access, says they’re hard to keep on their shelves.

“Parents love them, kids love them, every age loves them and they’re super, super popular,” she says. “The kids will read them over and over and over again, and we’re so happy John chose us for the project.”

The project in question came out of ways John, his family, and caregiver Aisha were exploring to help him collect 40 community service hours for his Ontario Secondary School Diploma. While this requirement is not compulsory for John, they were nonetheless keen to find ways for him to give back.

They happened upon the Promise 1000 Foundation, which helps youth between the ages of 15 and 30 make meaningful contributions to their communities, providing funds to youth who “promise to make a positive difference” where they live. Since its inception in 2023, they have supported more than 300 projects across the GTA and other selected parts of Canada.

“Their funding is usually $500, but because they don’t often have applicants who want to give back for accessibility reasons, they extended that for John for $1,000 as they wanted him to be able to donate 10 books to the Library,” Aisha explains. “As a kid, John always loved sound books, and he still loves sound books, so we thought it would be a great way to make things more accessible for children, youth, and whoever uses the Library.”

The donation of these sound books was music to the ears of Dillon and the APL team – and it wasn’t just the donation itself that warmed their hearts, but hearing of the impact APL has had on John himself.

“We can’t keep these books on the shelves – people want them, people request them, people say they want a certain one, or ‘My child struggles with communication,’ ‘My child struggles with socializing,’ and these books can help with all of those things,” says Dillon. “One of our main goals is early literacy education. We do that through story time. We do that through programming. We do that through a lot of ways – you think books immediately, but there are other ways that early literacy happens, not just reading.

“A lot of it is verbalizing. A lot of it is talking through things, and now you have a book that can read to you. Of course, we love when parents can read to their kids; obviously there is not only that social connection, but there’s bonding, but sometimes parents are busy, we get that. Handing this book to your child, that can happen independently, which also builds independent skills, and these are endlessly valuable products for us. They’re an excellent tool for literacy but also for fun – and it gets you away from a screen, which a lot of parents are also very interested in right now. It keeps them engaged in ways traditional books can’t.”

John’s donation of 10 books will soon hit Library shelves, and Dillon hopes they can find a way for his contributions to be marked inside each volume.

“This means everything,” says Aisha of John’s way of giving back. “It’s amazing that John can be recognized in the community as a contributor, because people with different disabilities are not always recognized in the community, so it’s great that he can be acknowledged and appreciated because he’s an amazing part of the community and we’re so grateful for all of this.”

By Brock Weir
Editor
Local Journalism Initiative Reporter