For over eight years now, I have been a classroom
volunteer at Up On Top (upontop.org), an after school program and summer program for low
income children in San Francisco. One of my favorite parts of being in the classroom is helping
the children choose from books that were obtained through a First
Book grant. Many times it is through our program that children experience going
to the library. So while they understand they can take the books from First
Book home, they are surprised when I explain that they are theirs to keep and
they don’t need to bring them back.
Youssef, a
second grader, spent quite some time looking through many books before finding the
ones that were “just right” for him. He asked me if these books were from
me. I said no, and showed him the
bookplate that said “First Book.” I explained that several years ago, people
got together and wanted to make sure that every child in the country had their
own books in their homes. I said that I was just one of many people who donated
money so that he could pick out books.
When I got
to the classroom the next week, I sat down to help Youssef with his homework. We
looked through the math, spelling and reading assignments, and he decided which
he would tackle first. Then, he turned
to me and asked, “And then would you tell me that story again about the people
that buy books for us, but don’t even know us?”
Warm regards, Luanne Schulte
