At our Next Chapter Breakfast this morning, Amanda Snell from The Esperanza Center shared with us how one of our programs impacted one family. It all started when Librarian Anne Guthrie identified a need in the community, requested and received a $2000 literacy grant from the Dollar General Corporation and leveraged it with community partners to make a huge impact on the residents of Greenwood. I’ve shared with you before about this work, but Amanda’s story of how it impacted one family is a tale not to be missed. Here is the story Amanda shared with us:
María lives alone in a two-bedroom apartment with her five children. She wakes up early to cook beans and rice for her family before sending them to school. Then, she wraps her infant around her chest in a blanket and walks across five lanes of rush-hour traffic to get groceries at a local convenience store. She cleans houses before her kids return home, feeds the family, then walks to work at a local fast food restaurant, returning at midnight or later. María lives just two miles away, at Westminster apartments. Three of her five children attend Northeast Elementary in Greenwood; they have never called any other place home. María makes these sacrifices daily so her kids can fulfill their dreams (which, for one daughter, includes becoming a pediatrician AND the President). But for María, literacy is a luxury.
María only attended school to third grade, and she had never been to the library until this summer because of lack of transportation, lack of time and fear due to, as she puts it, falta de inglés (lack of English). But this summer, through a partnership with the Greenwood Public Library, we were able to bring María and her children to the library weekly with about twenty other families like hers.
At the library, the kids had access to educational treats they don’t have at home, such as computers, Nook Readers, and, the most popular, therapy dogs, or furry friends, like Callie, and her trainer, Rhonda Price. These dogs provided not only uncontested attention, which they don’t always get at home, but nonjudgmental ears, which probably contributed to the significant increase in students’ DIBELS scores. As María’s third-grade son told me, “The dogs don’t really understand the stories, but they’re good at listening.”
María and the other moms learned that they play an important role in their children’s literacy, even if they do not speak English. When they found out library cards were free, they swarmed the front desk with applications, evidence of their eagerness to seize available opportunities to promote their children’s success. They also had access to the computers, where they learned how to navigate the school website. A few have since signed up for more free computer classes offered at the library. Due to the positive response, we have continued to offer an ESL class for mothers and weekly family literacy at the Greenwood Library.
When it comes to language and literacy, our immigrant children are forced to assume roles traditionally reserved for adults. They are responsible for helping Mom understand correspondence from the landlord, or prescriptions, or the car bill. Meanwhile, their parents work long hours to ensure these kids will be able to provide a better life for their own families. But literacy programs like this, which offer a safe, welcoming place for parents to bring their children and literacy activities so fun they feel like play, give our immigrant families a wonderful gift: Children are given permission to be children, and parents are empowered to see themselves not as deficient speakers of English, but as parents.
At the beginning of the school year, after the literacy program, María told me: “I’ve never dared to work on reading with my daughter because I’m afraid I don’t know how, but last week, I did, and her face was filled with joy and relief that I was helping her, like mothers do.”