“The project is in 10 women’s prisons throughout the state. I’m part of a group of Baytown volunteers who serve two women’s facilities in Dayton. On the third Saturday of the month, we carpool up there with books and recording devices, and we assist mothers as they read a book they selected for their child. They write a little note in it before we mail it to the child’s caregiver, along with a URL to access the recording.

“What got me hooked is the simplicity of the project and how powerful it is. The kids get a book of their own, and they get to hear their mom’s voice. Some of these mothers don’t get family visits very often. Sending the books and letting those kids hear their mom’s voice often triggers the family to stay in communication.

“One month when we had a new group of moms participating, you could just feel the anger rolling off one young woman. We were like, why did she even sign up? But she stuck with us. As we wrapped up the project with them, we asked what they were going to take away from it. We got answers like, ‘I learned that my little girl likes books about trucks.’ Or, ‘I learned that my child reads at a higher level than I thought.’ Women will say, ‘I’m going to get a library card when I’m released, so that I can get books for my children.’ These are all great things, and they touch our hearts.

“When that one young mom raised her hand to share something, we were surprised she wanted to participate. She said, ‘It’s a beautiful Saturday morning out there. You ladies could be home having a barbecue with your family. You don’t have to be here. But you come here and do this for us and our children, without expecting anything in return. I didn’t know there were people like that in the world.’

“At a different setting, another mother said, ‘I learned that I don’t have to sell drugs to buy expensive clothes or tennis shoes for my kids. They just want to hear my voice.’

“We understand that we are not going to touch every mom who comes through the program. But if we can reach just one mother who then reaches her child, and that child develops a love of reading, the ripple effect is just like throwing a stone into a still pond. It has an amazing impact.”

— Rhonda Chandler

Rhonda has been involved in Women’s Storybook Project of Texas for about 15 years. You can register to volunteer through the website at www.storybookproject.org.

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“For me, it all began with the thought of a rabbit: Alice’s white rabbit from Lewis Carroll’s 1865 book, ‘Through the Looking Glass,’ and how Alice was this curious girl who took chances. Especially into the dark tunnel of the unknown. I respected and related to that more than once in my life, and importantly, during quarantine from COVID-19. Learning to take chances, whether I jump, hop or leap. (Thanks, bunny, it’s infectious.) I’d bypassed the 3-inch caterpillar, Absolem, with his magical mushrooms and hookah, and the ever-grinning and disappearing Cheshire Cat. (It’s that grin plus the teeth — creepy.)

“So the shutdown eventually became mandatory. I already knew how to be isolated and in a dark place. Easy peasy. And when it was announced that consent to travel was needed for essential workers, things really began to snap into place. The easy peasy part for me is clinical depression and anxiety disorder. I’d already been battling with communication in various ways. Masks excluded, until now.

“Then about a month into quarantine I woke up one morning, stood up, and collapsed to the floor. I screeched as I hit. I don’t screech. Maybe a B movie scream queen, but never a screech. I have a disintegrating lower disk and severe osteoarthritis in my hip. Nerve damage. Fun stuff. Migrating from wheelchair to attempt long walks also has been a riot. I’m a sarcastic humanist, go figure. So here I am limited in inconceivable ways, and that damn hole I imagined of Alice looked real comfortable. Corona? Bah! COVID-19? I’m already a zero-to-zip isolationist. I thought I didn’t miss others. I also knew it was not a good place to be. Crazy, not stupid, huh? ‘We’re all mad here!’ says my beloved Mad Hatter, and I knew something had to change. My insurance offered me free counseling, and I was exuberant. Coping skills and treatment planning had me setting goals.

“The Cheshire Cat also says, ‘I’m not crazy, it’s just my reality is different than yours.’ Smart kitty. We’re all different and have different needs. What I love most about our planet is all the cultural differences. Even during the world quarantine, or in spite of it, we’re all battling the same thing. Which gave me an idea. ‘Why sometimes I’ve believed in as many as six different things before breakfast,’ Alice says. See, that’s my girl. I’d always kept a journal, and had written my uncle and aunt in New Mexico when I began to add family and friends, including pen pals as far away as Idaho and Tasmania. And they wrote back. Snail mail rocks! I threw in a surprise in the form of drawings. I began to sketch-pencil, add colors, and I’d even make cards and draw on envelopes.

“So my paradox began with my own world crashing down until I realized that I knew how to crawl out of a dark tunnel and daily reach out to others in a different, yet the same, place. Stepping out of self is the best experience of my life. It’s new adventures from all over the globe, right in my own looking glass.”

“It’s no use going back to yesterday because I was a different person.” — Alice

— Susan M. Plake

The post ‘Down the Rabbit Hole’ appeared first on The Baytown Project.

“I grew up in a very traditional Mexican household, where the father was the one who provided and the mother stayed home. That continued until I was 11 or 12, when my mother started working to help with the bills.

“My father was always a very hard worker, and he always treated me and my sister well. But whenever it came to doing things like yard work, he would tell us that we had to learn how to do everything a man could do. He said that we were just as strong and just as capable as men. But when it came to doing more domestic work, like cooking and cleaning the house, he wasn’t as supportive of making our brother do those things as he was of making me and my sister do them.

“It’s funny; I told my father that him being so old-fashioned made me a feminist because he taught me I can do everything a man can do. He says I’m really smart, I have a good head on my shoulders, and he trusts what I think about it. He doesn’t necessarily agree with it, but we have a laugh.

“I feel like the term feminism is often misinterpreted. Being a feminist does not mean you’re a man-hater. To me, essentially, feminism recognizes the equality of the sexes. Women are human beings, and we deserve equal rights to men.

“Men have centuries of ground ahead of us. But in such a short amount of time, women have created a lot of stepping stones for themselves to break so many glass ceilings. It’s really important to learn about those stories of successful women, and for women of my generation to feel empowered and chase our dreams, too.”

— Kaelyn Anaya

Kaelyn, a library technician at Sterling Municipal Library, recently started the Baytown Feminist Book Club. During the coronavirus pandemic, members meet weekly online. They are currently reading “The Female Man,” by Joanna Russ. Learn more on the Facebook page.

Related:

• Her mom on coronavirus testing front lines

The post Young feminist chases her dreams appeared first on The Baytown Project.

Meet Rootie Kazootie, a toy poodle who weighs 13 pounds. 

“My favorite Golden Book from the early 1950s was titled ‘Rootie Kazootie,’ and that’s where he got his name. When he was born, he was jet black but quickly grew out to a beautiful silver to match his human mom. 

“He is the best poodle I’ve ever had, and I’ve had many of all sizes. He is very smart and knows lots of tricks. Some of his favorite ones are down-and-roll over, jumping through a hula hoop, and running and jumping high into my arms. He loves all people and is very devoted to his mom, Poppy, and has never been away from her.”

The post ‘He is the best poodle I’ve ever had’ appeared first on The Baytown Project.

“I love animals. If I see a lost dog or cat on the side of the road, I’m like, ‘Oh, you poor thing. I can’t keep you, but I’ll shelter you for a couple days until I find you a home.’ I guess I’m just that type of person.

“That’s probably why I wrote this poem a long time ago called ‘Lost at Night.’ I had forgotten all about it. But when I was moving, I stumbled upon my poem book and rediscovered it. It was about a dog lost at night who can’t find his way home.

“I think I’ve always been a writer. But I’ve just recently decided to actually do something about it. I’m trying to get my words out there. So I thought, why not extend this poem into a children’s book. The lost dog meets another dog, and together they meet a cat. Then they all meet a duck. And later on, they meet two bluejays. They’re all lost at night, and home is nowhere in sight. Throughout their journey, they become friends. Then they finally meet a woman, and she takes all of them in. It’s kind of a sad story, but it has a happy ending.

“As a rescuer myself, I think the story carries a message about having a heart for lost animals. They all deserve a chance to have a home with someone who will love them and take care of them.”

— Maureen St. louis Nelson

Related:

• She’s surrounded by a family of caregivers

• ‘Meals on Wheels’ met caregiver challenge

The post Poem about lost pets becomes children’s book appeared first on The Baytown Project.

“I have this innate love of reading, learning and challenging authority. I read all kinds of books about science, history, religion. A lot of them are simply reference books. I have several sets of encyclopedias and history books. I don’t read one at a time, and I don’t read books all the way through. Sometimes I’ll turn to an area I’m interested in and just read that. I hop around a lot.

“I couldn’t tell you how many books I’ve read in my life — probably tens of thousands. I have two storage units full of books, and lots of other stuff. At home, I recently had a collapse of books, and I haven’t had the energy to pick them all up. In my room, they’re just stacked to the wall.

“I don’t have a computer. So when I find a book that I’m interested in buying and I save up enough money, my son orders it for me. I’ve been reading a lot of science fiction and fantasy lately. The library has lots of those on sale. I can get five paperbacks for $1. Since I live on Social Security, that’s a great way to get a lot of good reading material.

“My sisters say that when I die, it’s all going to be a big bonfire. Nothing lasts forever. But to me, books are more precious than gold.

“There are so many good books out there. A person could read 10 lifetimes and not even scratch the surface. That’s the great thing about books. There’s something for everybody. As Solomon said, ‘Of making many books there is no end; and much study is a weariness of the flesh.’ Because you can never read them all.”

— JimBob Hirst

Related:

• ‘Believe whatever you want to believe’ about religion

The post ‘Books are more precious than gold’ appeared first on The Baytown Project.

“We have different incentives to encourage the students to read. Little kids are really motivated by pencils, bookmarks, erasers and stuff like that. We do AR (accelerated reader) dollars. I run reports every few weeks, and they get a dollar for however many kinds of points they’ve earned. We have a prize list, and they can buy things with their points. There’s a big shelf of brand new books that they can spend $10 of fake money on and get a book to take home and keep forever. It’s like shopping at the book fair for free.

“The biggest thing we do is lunch and ice cream in the library. They pay for it with AR dollars, and I put them on the schedule. They get to come in here with three friends and watch something on the big screen. They eat lunch, and we have ice cream parties. It’s something different, and the kids just love it. It only costs me the price of some cheap ice cream from the store, but they think it’s amazing.”

— Amanda Rayburn

(Photo by Olivia Garza/Liv’s Looking Glass)

Related:

• Free Little Library connects kids with reading

• Teaching kids the importance of reading is key

The post Reading more fun with prizes, ice cream parties appeared first on The Baytown Project.

“A big kind of buzzword these days is ‘future ready librarian.’ What a lot of that means is, are we preparing young students for the technology that they’re going to encounter? Are we exposing them to coding, robotics and different things like that? We’re definitely exploring all of that, and it’s fun for them. But it doesn’t matter what you’re doing now or in the future, you still have to be able to read.

“It all comes back to the basics of reading. And I can teach you how to read. But reading with understanding and reading with passion, that comes from holding a book in your hands and just reading.

“We all probably remember the book or series of books that sparked our love of reading. For me, it was the Little House on the Prairie books and the Nancy Drew mystery books. And let me tell you, I still read them. About once every couple years, I’ll read through the whole series. It takes me back to when I was in late elementary school and junior high. I could never get enough of books.

“So what I try to make the kids understand is that while all the other activities we do are cool and wonderful, reading is at the core of everything. Finding good books and reading them, because we’re interested in them and because they make us excited to turn the page, that’s what is most important.”

— Amanda Rayburn

Amanda taught kindergarten, first grade and third grade for seven years at Travis Elementary, before returning to school to earn her master’s degree in library science and getting her certification. She is in her fifth year as librarian at Lamar Elementary.

(Photo by Olivia Garza/Liv’s Looking Glass)

Related:

• Little Free Library connects kids with reading

• Reading more fun with prizes, ice cream parties

The post Teaching kids the importance of reading is key appeared first on The Baytown Project.

“I was looking at a librarian page on Facebook, and someone had posted about their Little Free Library. I thought it looked pretty cool. So when it came time to write Education Foundation grants, I decided to do one for our campus.

“We placed it behind the school because I wanted it to be more of a neighborhood thing. I didn’t want it out front because of all the traffic. We have a lot of families that live close by, so many of the kids walk to school. This way, whether it’s on the weekend, during the summer, or just any time school isn’t open and kids don’t have a ride to Sterling Municipal Library, there are books here available for them. We also have adult books, so it’s not just for the students.

“The Little Free Library motto is, ‘Take a book, share a book.’ Anyone can take a book and keep it at home forever, return it here, or drop off it or other books that they may have at other Little Free Library locations across the country. If they’re traveling, they can go to the website and search to see if the city they’re going to also has one. They give you the address or GPS coordinates for it.

“A school librarian’s job, first and foremost, is to help instill a love of reading in kids by any means necessary. It could be through graphic novels, comic books, magazines, cereal boxes — just anything they want to read. This is another great way to help encourage them to read.”

— Amanda Rayburn

Amanda is the librarian at Lamar Elementary. She was able to purchase the Little Free Library through a grant from the Goose Creek CISD Education Foundation.

(Photo by Olivia Garza/Liv’s Looking Glass)

Related:

• Teaching kids the importance of reading is key

• Reading more fun with prizes, ice cream parties

The post Little Free Library connects kids with reading appeared first on The Baytown Project.

Name
Kathleen Merritt

Age
55

How long have you lived in Baytown?
37 years

Most interesting fact about you
I have survived a lot of trials, tribulations and tragedies.

Background
I was raised in Philadelphia. I moved here in 1982 with my family after our mother passed away. I found my true love, got married in 1984, and raised two great kids in the heart of Baytown. Now I have two grandkids. I have been loving Baytown a long time. I worked at Joey’s Glass for more then 16 years, and then I opened my own company here, Professional Auto Glass. It was one of my best achievements, besides my kids. Unfortunately, due to divorce, we had to close. I loved meeting people who came into our mom-and-pop shop. It was very fulfilling. I’m now working for a great company and living my best life.

Goals
I would love to write a book; I’ve written a few pages so far. I also try to live a positive life and share that with others.

Challenges
Heartbreak is number one. Facing fear is number two.

Happiest or saddest moments
My happiest moment was giving birth to my kids. My saddest moments were losing my son at age 24 and losing my dad to murder in 1991. We moved here from Philly for peace; that wasn’t so for my dad. But I still love this state, so I choose joy.

Advice
Always wake up grateful. Smile and be kind to others. And listen to people when they talk.

Reading or watching
I love to read, especially mysterious stories, books that keep you in suspense. Same thing with shows, although I’m more of a patio girl and not too much of a TV girl.

Favorite things to do in Baytown
Go to El Toro on a Friday night. I also love the Town Square, new umbrella alley and all the art being painted in different places. Another great thing about Baytown is my church at Second Baytown.

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