SAN ANTONIO — In her garage is where you can find 16-year-old Rebekah Curtis sorting through books.
The small collection is part of her Girl Scouting Gold Award Project called 'Quality Books for Quality Life' where she is working to build a library for families at, Presbyterian Children's Homes and Services.
"My goal is to give them enough books to give them a real library… so they are always accessible to residents there," Rebekah Curtis said.
Her generous heart, something her mom says she adopted at an early age.
"Rebekah has always been very empathetic, and a very tender-hearted girl and I think between her accident and the year and a half of recovery that she went through, that it helped to open her eyes even more to the needs of others," Rebekah's Mom, Sarah Curtis said.
When Rebekah was 10-years-old she suffered a major accident in her backyard, forcing her to undergo two surgeries here in San Antonio.
"I fell off the zipline in our backyard. I snapped the head off my femur and broke both bones in my wrist," Rebekah Curtis said.
The accident would lead to her developing a bone disease, that would require two other surgeries in Baltimore.
That's when she first leaned on books as a form of entertainment and therapy
"I love books. It's just a bit of an escape I suppose," Rebekah Curtis said. "I found [it was] a nice thing to do while I was in recovery."
But she discovered the hospitality home in Baltimore where she was recovering didn't have many books.
"They had lots of movies, but virtually no children's books," Rebekah Curtis said.
Thanks to the generosity of her family and friends back in Texas, the then 10-year-old began collecting books to leave behind.
"I put together a littler library there at the hospitality house in Baltimore," Rebekah Curtis said.
So when her sweet sixteen birthday rolled around this year, it was not a surprise that Rebekah asked for books for her service project, instead of gifts.
"I'm very well provided for, so I didn't need more gifts. It was just a good way to raise books," Rebekah Curtis said.
Her heart of gold, only growing through the years.