Written by Denise Gary
If you grew up attending school in middle or upper class neighborhoods, stop for a moment and think how differently your life might have turned out had you attended a school which had fewer books in its library collection than the number of students enrolled per school year. What if every child attending school with you lived below the poverty level and had no books at home? What if the school system had misappropriated their funds, stealing from your education? If this had been your unlucky lot in life, what path might you have taken if you had not been exposed to the dreams and inspirational role models provided by great literature?
Now imagine if one philanthropic voice had sought a way to help you through a group of people that believe books have the ability to empower every child to leave poverty behind them. Would one special book (or more) have touched your life and opened your eyes to the incredible possibilities that are open to us all?
Sadly, this fictional setting is all too prevalent, but the solution is at the heart of Kids Need to Read. Our foundation received a phone call in November from Michelle Horowitz, the President of Berline – a successful advertising, marketing and digital communications agency located in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan. Their desire was to make a difference for the kids of their community by giving a generous Christmas gift of literacy on behalf of their clients. Kids Need to Read turned their gift into a rich, relevant provision of books for the children of Golightly Educational Center in Detroit, Michigan. The setting described above is that of Golightly, a public school with less than 500 books in its library and an enrollment of nearly 800 students for grades Pre-K through 8.
The Detroit public school system is the subject of much recent controversy, due to the squandering of its funds by the school board. Through the efforts of Emergency Financial Manager Robert Bobb, the district is now in a slow recovery period, although by much financial sacrifice of its teachers, who are deferring $10,000 each in pay over the next two years. However, Golightly’s caring educators are lovingly attempting to mentor their students through literacy, and they are looking for every avenue of assistance they can find to advance the success of their goals. From Golightly French teacher Elizabeth Birru:
Detroit Public Schools is in a funding crisis – with misappropriated funds, loss of student population, and distrust of book vendors, there is little money; thus, it is difficult to get materials into our schools. We at Golightly dream of having a lender’s library where children can take books home and return them for new ones; we also dream of having a large supply of paperback books so we can give them to our children to KEEP them at home to use or share them. We also would love to have magazine and newspaper subscriptions for our children.
Through the kindness of Berline, Kids Need to Read was able to provide 81 high-interest books (mostly hard bound), 400 copies of Highlights magazine, 100 copies of Highlights High Five, and a one year library subscription to both magazines for Golightly’s library. The magazines will be given to every age-appropriate child in the school to keep.
Ms. Birru reacted to the Berline donation with gratitude:
May I first wish you and yours a well-deserved and very best of New Years. I must also say that you and your organization have certainly set our students off to a fabulous New Year’s start by so generously offering them an absolutely amazing collection of novels. The variety of topic and difficulty of these novels well suit the diverse population of our readers. The HIGHLIGHTS magazines are also phenomenal for our elementary aged students. All of the children are ecstatic! And, we, as the adults, are “whoopin’ it up,” too! Needless to say, we are very appreciative and want you to know that these literary materials will be lovingly and effectively used.
On behalf of the children and staff of Golightly Educational Center, Kids Need to Read would like to extend heartfelt thanks to Berline, as well as to Patrice Merritt, Executive Director of The Detroit Public Library Friends Foundation. Together, we are telling the children of Golightly Educational Center that we care about them, and that may very well be the most powerful message anyone can deliver to any child.
