 While still a young child, she discovered that many of the local school children in Schoolfield Virginia, which is a suburb of Danville, did not have access to books.To help alleviate this situation, she convinced her mother to help collect money to start a school library in this nearby town.Mary Gaver and her mother solicited donations door-to-door and gathered $100 that was then graciously matched by executives at Dan River Mill, where her father was executive secretary to the president, for a total of $200.