Every night he collected what others threw away.
One day he realized that, among those wastes, there was something much more valuable than any other object.
José Alberto Gutiérrez worked as an ecological operator in Bogotá, Colombia.
He had left school after the first years of elementary school and, as a child, he soon learned how difficult it was to grow without having access to books.
One night, during his work shift, he found some volumes in perfect conditions abandoned among the waste of a wealthy neighborhood.
He couldn't leave them there.
He took them home.
The next night he found more.
And then more.
Over the years, what had begun as a simple habit turned into a true mission.
Together with his wife, Luz Mary, he began to keep all the books recovered, slowly filling all available space in their home.
When they realized they had collected thousands of volumes, they decided that it was time to share them.
This is how La Fuerza de las Palabras was born, a free library open to the children of the neighborhood.
Today their house holds over 20,000 books saved from the garbage.
Books that, instead of ending up in dump, found new readers.
In the years José has also donated thousands of volumes to schools and communities in different areas of Colombia, offering so many children the opportunity to read, study and imagine a different future.
His story shows that the value of a book does not depend on where it is found.
It depends on the hands that peel it.
And perhaps José's most extraordinary gesture was not to save thousands of books.
It is having remembered that, when culture is shared, each page can become a new opportunity to change a life.