More Than Bedtime Stories

Librarian Garrette Smith stood in front of a group of homeless women, many illiterate, to discuss reading with their children. Worried that they would see her as a professional woman talking “at” them not “with” them, she found common ground – motherhood.

“I noticed going around the table that their faces shined more when they talked about their children,” Garrette said.

Garrette was at the American Red Cross to teach these mothers the shared reading technique, part of United Way of Greater Cincinnati’s Success by 6® initiative.

Download the pdf at left to read the story originally published in our 2006 Annual Report to the Community.