Former teacher's mission to educate continues with free books for kids
Though she is no longer in a classroom, a longtime educator has found numerous ways to share her love of reading.
With a nostalgic holdover from her family's past, Lisa Gerard, of Norman, distributes free books to children and adults at laundromats, homeless outreach events, local parks, early childhood centers and other places.
Gerard, 55, founded the nonprofit Little Read Wagon as a way to fulfill her mission to help close the literacy gap often created by poverty. And by filling her children's Little Tykes Lil Wagon with books, Gerard is spreading a love of reading and books with community members, particularly marginalized groups.
Gerard said the name for her organization came to her the first time she took some of the books she had accumulated over 20 years of teaching and placed them in the iconic red wagon her children loved when they were small. She said that first time, she was heading to distribute books at a Laundry Love outreach at a local laundromat.
How Little Read Wagon was formed
Gerard said she came to Norman by way of Mississippi after her meteorologist husband accepted a job with the National Weather Center on the University of Oklahoma campus. She said her children were grown and had flown the nest and she had left her 20-year career as a special education teacher in Mississippi.
Gerard said she began volunteering for Laundry Love, a nonprofit that visits local laundromats and provides community members with quarters to help pay for their laundry needs. She said she noticed that parents were trying to watch their children and do their laundry at the same time. She arrived at a local laundromat one Saturday with her little red wagon full of books and began reading a story to children while their older family members did laundry.
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Gerard, and her books, were a hit.
She said she gave a lot of books away and began to going to many Laundry Love outings to hand out books, read stories to children and talk to them about reading. The former school teacher said it wasn't long before adults were asking for books, as well.
Currently, Gerard and her Little Read Wagon volunteers continue to distribute books at Laundry Love locations. They also give out books at events like a community resource fair held at The Well in Norman. Gerard said she distributes books to children in five Head Start centers in Cleveland County, and by the time the school year ends, the students will have received 40 books each to stock their home library.
Little Read Wagon has also partnered with Ice Angels of Mosaic Community Church in Oklahoma City to distribute books and reading glasses at Ice Angels' outreach to people experiencing homelessness on the second and fourth Wednesday of the month at a location just south of downtown Oklahoma City.
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Other Little Read Wagon programs include #Look4ABook. Gerard and the nonprofit's volunteers hide books enclosed in plastic around local parks, encouraging anyone who finds them to take a picture of the book and post it on social media along with the program's hashtag. Gerard said she has found that many people like to hide books for others to find them.
Little Read Wagon also has another program called PJs and Pages, which offers pajamas and books to families at select Laundry Love events. Gerard said she loves to talk to parents about the importance of setting up a nightly bedtime story time routine.
Gerard said she has many people who look forward to her visits, including the young man that seeks her out for books to help him pass the GED exam. He wants to become a chef, so she also gives him cookbooks.
Gerard said one Laundry Love regular liked talking about reading and enjoyed selecting a book each time she saw Little Read Wagon at her local laundromat. Gerard said the woman battled cancer and her friends took books from the nonprofit to her before she eventually succumbed to the disease. Gerard said the woman's friends told her that she enjoyed each book that was given to her.
She also has people who like to get crossword puzzle and word find books from Little Read Wagon because they are trying to learn English and these books have helped them as they try to learn the language.
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Gerard may have started her literacy mission by giving people books from her own shelves, but many books distributed by Little Read Wagon are currently purchased through grants and donations. Gerard said she also goes to yard sales and thrift stores to find books to give away.
She said she'll continue on her mission because reading is important.
"I found a statistic from the U.S. Department of Education that said two thirds of children from low-income homes don't have a single book in their home," Gerard said.
"I want to give out as many books as I can."
To learn more
For more information about Little Read Wagon, go to https://www.littlereadwagonok.com/.
This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: Little Read Wagon nonprofit gives away books, hosts story times
