Reading Rocks at the Library

Retired seniors famously fill the ranks of the nation's volunteers. They are the ones who often have free time, and since many want to be useful to their community and are therefore importuned to give of this time, they may well find themselves confronted with the need to make choices. Should I do this? or this? or maybe this?

Recently an opportunity came Kendal's way that many residents jumped at. Volunteers were needed for a program aimed at encouraging kids from disadvantaged families in the nearby Newark school system to imagine that a college education might be a real possibility for them. Here was a project with a clear and undeniably good goal, and so Kendal residents quickly enlisted – so many of them, in fact, that the list of volunteers soon exceeded the number of slots! This could well be the start of a grand and enduring partnership!

The background of the program is this. Some years ago, in an effort to increase the proportion of Newark high school graduates who go on to college, a support program named A Call to College was created. Its founders initially targeted just high school students, but soon decided that if the twin tasks of encouragement and enablement were to be fulfilled, earlier interventions were needed. And so in recent years the program has developed strategies for getting kids as young as second grade interested in, if not college itself (a rather foggy notion to a 7-year-old), then in READING. The plan is called Reading Rocks at the Library, and its aim is to get these youngsters into the public library – many didn't even know such a thing existed – and for them to have opportunities to engage with adults there whose words and lives and enthusiasm can validate the value of books in the opening up of opportunities. Kendal volunteers, living testaments to the values of reading, were asked to step into the role of the validating adults.

Social scientists will tell us that it's much too soon to know whether the strategy of Reading Rocks will have an impact. It will probably take ten or fifteen years before the results can be fully measured. But the Kendal volunteers, savvy in the ways of their young grandchildren, report that their own experiences with the program give them grounds for optimism. They also report that have been having a rollicking good time. After all, who wouldn't have fun walking among a gang of eager and happy seven-year-olds while sporting an odd hat or two, maybe teaching a few words in a foreign language, perhaps showing off a fancifully-attired doll or a gorgeous book, sometimes sharing photos of a childhood from long ago, and inevitably answering a staggering set of questions from primed and curious kids (e.g., did the navy make you bald?)? Art Linkletter never had more fun.

It is probably important to their success with the kids that these volunteers bring a number of different career backgrounds to their service – a counselor, a nurse, a small business owner, an athletic director, a writer, a service veteran. But it is more important that they can answer questions about their lives and (since they're a clever bunch) find ways to link these answers to their living testimony about the importance of books in the shaping of their lives.

Many people have observed how retired folks often draw pleasure and energy from seeing the young disport themselves. Through the Reading Rocks at the Library program Kendal residents are hoping that the young in turn can draw pleasure and a more focused energy from seeing seniors romp as a result of being able to read.