Books change lives. Much of the social disorder being witnessed in low-income and inner city communities across the country can be directly attributed to one primary cause: Low reading skills. When a child falls behind his or her peers in learning to read, it’s most often expressed in negative classroom behavior. To mask their lack of ability, children begin to act out, which is the first step towards mentally opting out of the educational experience and process. From there it’s a slow but steady downward slide to dropping out of school at the first possible moment, since no child likes the daily reminder of how inadequate and unprepared they are.
And once the young person drops out of school, ill-equipped and -prepared to enter the job market, a life of crime often beckons. What else are they going to do?
This is a process that plays out all too often in America, but now there’s something you — yes, you — can do to stop this train wreck from happening before it occurs. And it’s very easy.
The goal of Greater Cleveland’s Kids’ Book Bank is to break the poverty cycle by exposing low-income children to language and reading from birth — fostering literacy skills, opening their minds to the world beyond their neighborhoods and fueling their imaginations. This is as basic and uncomplicated as it gets, folks, and there’s a simple and effective role for everyone to play.
In early 2016, the Kids’ Book Bank brought hundreds of thousands of free children’s books to Cleveland through a new partnership with online bookseller Discover Books. These are books that would otherwise have been sent to the recycling bin, but now they are being placed in the hands of children in need throughout our community. In just their first two months of operation the organization has received 78,000 books and distributed more than 26,000 of them. That’s a lot of books.
Numerous volunteers have helped Judy Payne (the dynamic whirlwind advocate who serves as the sparkplug for Kids’ Book Bank) sort, box and distribute the mountain of books, a mountain that can continue to grow by 40,000 books every month. But more help is needed.
“We have partnered with key early intervention, after school and tutoring programs to distribute the books to children and families in need,” said Payne. “Five agencies distribute the books to new parents while teaching them to read with their young children. Our books facilitate training programs to teach home daycare providers to read with the children in their care and to promote kindergarten readiness. We are working with Boys and Girls Club, Cleveland Metropolitan School District, ExperienceCorps and low-income youth-serving agencies community wide to distribute hundreds of thousands of K-12 books through their programs that teach and engage children reading.”
Only 58 percent of third graders in the Cleveland Metropolitan School District, and less than half of the children in the Warrensville Heights district, passed the 2015 Ohio Reading Proficiency Test. Yet studies show that being read to as a child and having books in the home are the two most important indicators of future academic success. However, two thirds of low-income families do not own a single children’s book since many struggling households, unfortunately, view books as a luxury, one they sadly cannot afford.
The Kids’ Book Bank program’s mission is to change that reality. An outgrowth of the Cleveland Little Free Library Movement (those cute little book boxes that resemble houses that can been seen around town) that was formed in 2013 in collaboration with Cleveland Public Library (with funding provided by PNC Bank), Payne’s efforts have placed thousands of books in the hands of children in need through the more than 60 Little Free Libraries that are installed in select locations around Cuyahoga County.
Children need an endless supply of books.
This is where you come in. The Kids’ Book Bank needs your help to continue its mission. More volunteers are needed to sort and box books (as well as for a variety of other tasks such as help with distribution), and, of course, additional financial support from the community to cover operating expenses is critical. The physical work is done at 3635 Perkins Avenue, Suite 1E, and volunteers can sign up to schedule a sorting time through kidsbookbank.org, or by calling Judy Payne at 216-526-1006. You can also visit them at facebook.com/clevelandkidsbookbank.
I’m only asking people to do something my wife and I have done since we discovered this fine organization that is having such a tremendous impact on the lives of kids, which, of course, translates to an impact on all of society: Help us out.
From Cool Cleveland correspondent Mansfield B. Frazier mansfieldfATgmail.com. Frazier’s From Behind The Wall: Commentary on Crime, Punishment, Race and the Underclass by a Prison Inmate is available again in hardback. Snag your copy and have it signed by the author by visiting http://NeighborhoodSolutionsInc.com.
One Response to “MANSFIELD: Kids’ Book Bank”
Peter Lawson Jones
Mansfield, thank you for shining a most deserved light on Judy’s and the Kids’ Book Bank’s wonderful efforts. My family and I look forward to volunteering at the KBB facility, and I have invited Judy to address the audience following the second staged reading/workshop of my new play, “The Bloodless Jungle,” on Sunday, June 5th, 3:00 pm at Ensemble Theatre in Cleveland Heights. Hers is a common sense initiative with game-changing potential.