‘ROAD TO READING’
NAACP has given more than 7,000 books to kids
“This person came out of nowhere and made this offer and we were just blown away. Now, at all the events we go to, we bring books and kids are just snapping them up.”
— Johnny Corson, president of the Pottstown chapter of the NAACP
POTTSTOWN >> Did you know there is a “word gap?”
According to a 2019 study at Ohio State University, kids who are read to at home every day enter kindergarten having been exposed to about 1 million more words than those who have not been. Why does that matter? “Kids who hear more vocabulary words are going to be better prepared to see those words in print when they enter school,” said study leader Jessica Logan, assistant professor of educational studies at Ohio State University and a member of Ohio State’s Crane Center for Early Childhood Research and Policy.
“They are likely to pick up reading skills more quickly and easily,” she said in an article on the study in a university publication. That translates into earlier success, and thus more confidence in school, and more options in life.
But like so many things, early access to books can often depend on money, something that can be in short supply with kids in the house. So how do you get books into the hands of kids whose families can’t afford them? You give them away of course.
This is the point in the story at which the reporter often introduces the person who is answering that question. The problem is, the reporter doesn’t know, because the remarkably generous donor funding the Pottstown Chapter of the NAACP’s Road to Reading program is remaining very decidedly anonymous.
What this reporter does know, thanks to Bob and Sandy Bauers, the two NAACP members who are heading up the program, is there are a lot of books getting into the hands of a lot of Pottstown kids thanks to this effort. A lot.
“Last summer a donor came to us and offered to give us $20,000 to buy books for disadvantaged
Pottstown children ages 0 to 8. The donor has funded similar efforts in Phoenixville and Norristown. He said that when we spent the $20,000 he would give us another $20,000, and so on up to $100,000,” Bob Bauers explained.
As of mid-March, the
NAACP had spent about $31,000 buying more than 7,000 books and giving them away to children.
The donor came to the NAACP, because of the group’s “deep connections in the community” and believes the NAACP “could best identify ways to get the books to kids who need them.”
The new books the kids get are theirs to keep, not borrowed or lent or used.
“This person came out of nowhere and made this offer and we were just blown away,” said Johnny Corson, president of the Pottstown chapter of the NAACP. “Now, at all the events we go to, we bring books and kids are just snapping them up.”
Corson, who read a lot as a child, said “With books, you can be transported, you can go anywhere, be anything. Plus it helps us get our kids off social media.”
The donor’s goal, Bauers said, is to see an improvement in reading test scores among Pottstown children. Currently, about 63 percent of Pottstown third graders are ranked as “basic” or “below basic” on the PSSA reading scores. Among economically disadvantaged third graders, that number is more than 68 percent.
“The NAACP receives no money and does not pay directly for the books Sandy and I order from an educational website that offers deep discounts,” said Bauers. “We work very closely with the Literacy Council of Norristown, which takes the money from our donor and places the orders for the books we choose. LNC is our financial sponsor, and its paid director, Eileen Hallstrom, is our mentor and partner.”
The NAACP has about two dozen entities and events through which the books are delivered. The Pottstown School District is the effort’s biggest partner which has already received and distributed 600 books. Another 700 used and donated books have gone into the school district’s libraries.
But getting the books to the kids to keep is vitally important.
“This enables students to have books of their own, and to start their own personal library,” said John Armato, a school board member and the district’s volunteer director of community relations.
“So many of these books feature characters of color, and our own staff has said, this is a big issue for them,” said Schools Superintendent Stephen Rodriguez. “The big box providers of curriculum, we love much of what we use from them, but when it comes to the primary grades, they tend to feature predominantly Caucasians, so it’s nice to have reading material featuring minorities.”
“We have really enjoyed having the books for our children, said Wendy Egolf, housing director at The Salvation Army family homeless shelter in Pottstown. “They bring age-appropriate books and culturally appropriate and sensitive books. Our kids and our children are just thrilled to have books of their own here at the family residence shelter.”
Even in retirement, former Pottstown teacher Sha
ron Holloway continues to work with children, primarily by reading to them as part of a group called Mother Goose Read to Me since 2014, and she said the NAACP book giveaway has been “such a bonus for our program.”
“We’ve held a couple of book giveaway days in Bright Hope and the staff and principal at Barth Elementary School have been so incredibly supportive, they come to the events,” Holloway said. “It’s so much fun to watch the kids’ faces when their teacher shows up. And to watch them pick out books for their siblings”
The Mother Goose readers also visit Community Health and Dental at the Coventry Mall on Mondays and Tuesdays “and we put out the NAACP’s books there too and the kids have learned, they make a bee-line for those books. It makes what we do so much richer.”
On the other end of the book distribution scale is a single person, Gail Beasley, a bus driver who gives treatment or counseling books to children riding to Pottstown elementary schools.
“I love giving these kids books. They get on my bus and they ask for a book. I have parents asking me for books and then I see them walking down the street, reading that book to their child,” Beasley told MediaNews Group.
“I let them pick out their own and they get so excited when they see the cover has someone who looks like them, that’s why I’m excited,” she said.
“We try to choose a high percentage of books that depict people of color, promote diversity or feature neutral characters like animals,” Bauers said.
Other partners include Family Services of Montgomery County, Montgomery County Intermediate Unit which runs three local Head Start classes, Kingdom Life Day Care, Next Level barber shop, H & R Block (kids come with parents in tax season), Blades Edge Salon, Literacy Council of Norristown, Mother Goose Read to Me, Community Health and Dental, Creative Kiddie Care Center, Salvation Army Family Shelter, The Cluster food pantry, YMCA Trunk or Treat Event, Bright Hope Christmas Party, Ricketts Center
Christmas Party, Pottstown Easter event at Riverfront Park, YWCA Week Without Violence event.
(Don’t forget folks, Friday, April 12, is Drop Everything and Read Day.)