KINDNESS THAT SPEAKS VOLUMES
Read to Me! provides books to those in need
Tucked away at the city of Albuquerque’s Transit Maintenance Center is a sanctuary for literacy. In one of the rooms, in a corner, sits a giant stack of brown cardboard boxes, each filled donated children’s books.
Several volunteers with regional literacy network Read to Me! are hard at work opening each box and carrying the books to a nearby table. There, any names or identifiers of prior owners on the pages are covered up. The book is then given the finishing touch of a Read to Me! sticker on its cover and sorted onto a shelf based on grade reading level.
Several books are divided among more specific categories based on the book’s content, language or the race of its characters — a step to guide readers toward works in which they might see themselves or their culture reflected in what they read.
These are just the first few steps the books take on their journey from a donation box to the Read to Me! shelves and eventually into the hands of a child, family or adult.
For more than 20 years, Read to Me! has been providing books to any person or organization that needs them. The goal? That the feel, smell and sense of ownership of a book will help foster a lifelong love of reading.
“I don’t think there’s anything more important (than reading) because it creates imagination, it creates curiosity,” said Dave Orner, Read to Me! coordinator. “If people don’t have that, what kind of life will they have?”
Orner has been involved with Read to Me! for more than a decade and said the nonprofit used to rely on a spring book drive to generate most of its donations, but grants from Sandia National Laboratories in recent years have helped it
expand operations and assist more groups with securing books.
Last year, Read to Me! distributed more than 73,000 books to entities such as Albuquerque Public Schools, Albuquerque Police Department, food banks, libraries and even laundromats across Albuquerque. The nonprofit also creates bags full of books that are stored on Albuquerque city buses and the Rail Runner, giving children and even adults who rely on these modes of transportation a book to read during their commute.
Several volunteers have also taken it upon themselves to expand access to Read to Me!’s books to schools in other parts of the state. Betty and Rick Follett help deliver books to schools in Valencia County, with a emphasis on bilingual and Spanish books.
The impact of the book donations to schools hits especially close to home for current Read to Me! volunteer Catherine Garcia Scott, a retired Albuquerque Public Schools librarian.
Read to Me! provided an accessible stream of books that Garcia Scott was able to give to her students and their families.
“Having access to quality literature and arts and illustrations are so important for the children,” she said. “They see the beauty of words and the beauty of books.”
Orner said Read to Me! workers have heard stories from people who grew up struggling to read. The books they’ve received through Read to Me! as adults gave them a second opportunity to learn how .
Hearing such stories reinforces the Read to Me! mission and provides Orner a bit of personal pride.
“I’m very pleased to do this. I get a lot of satisfaction out of it,” Orner said.
Gino Gutierrez is the good news reporter at the Albuquerque Journal. If you have an idea for a good news story, you can contact him at goodnews@abqjournal.com or at 505-823-3940.