Greensboro Public Library
"Community of Readers" Coalition
Steve Sumerford, librarian
Vance H. Chavis Lifelong Learning Library
900 S. Benbow Road
Greensboro, N.C. 27406
(919) 373-2392

Here's an unusual partnership: A library, the business community and local agencies have joined hands to teach adults and children to read.

The Community of Readers started when the staff at Greensboro's Southeast Branch, located in a poor, predominantly black neighborhood, became concerned because the branch was doing poorly in terms of the traditional measure, circulation. "We're not the kind of branch where people walk out with stacks of Stephen King novels in their arms," said Sumerford, a youngish, bearded veteran of the peace movement.

Literacy training seemed like an obvious move, but workers here approached it with a substantial twist. First, rather than merely announcing reading classes, they decided to build "ownership" by inspiring the formation of a broad coalition, involving not only public agencies from the school board to the mental-health department and the mayor's office, but also local businesses that have a stake in an educated community.

With that backing, the library's Community of Readers started spinning off reading programs, always focusing not on the negative ("You're illiterate, and you can't read") but on the positive ("Reading is Fun!")

Among many neat models, the library sponsored "Families Reading Together" workshops with relevant reading materials for parents and their children to share. Children's Librarian Lou Saunders held several dozen "Catch 'Em In The Cradle" workshops at teen-pregnancy classes, high schools, civic groups, energizing young parents with the idea (and the information needed) of enriching their kids' lives with books and reading from the start.

The library trains literacy teachers in frequent workshops, and it has organized annual "Young Writers' Conferences" for more than 600 Greensboro students who compete for prizes for their stories, articles and poems. They even used quality books that would have been cast off as duplicates to build a mini-library at the city's Pathways family shelter, where workers go to give frequent workshops -- using library books -- on subjects ranging from family budgeting to nutrition.

The library branch, renamed the Lifelong Learning Library, now buzzes with activity from opening to closing, with happy children and adults streaming in. It still doesn't circulate a lot of Stephen King novels, but it is one of the busiest libraries in the Greensboro system; and instead of talking about budget cuts, the city now plans to expand it with a building addition next year.

All the feature stories on @GRASS-ROOTS.ORG's pages are reported and written by Robin Garr, a prize-winning journalist who has visited more than 500 innovative grassroots programs in all 50 states since 1990.

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