By the Book

THE THREE VOLUNTEERS stared down piles upon piles of children’s books. Historic fiction, contemporary fiction, poetry, classics, and graphic novels all jumbled together.

Jane Sutter, the retired president and CEO of the Boys and Girls Clubs of Oklahoma County, remembers Alison Taylor, then program manager at the Oklahoma City Public Schools Foundation, telling them: “We’re going to have this bus made into a little library, and we’re going to give away these free books for children. It’s all going to be wonderful.”

“It was about reading, and it was about kids, and those are my loves,” Sutter says. “How fun is that?”

Sutter suggested sorting by genre, and thus began the Oklahoma City Public Schools Foundation’s first ReadOKC On the Go! Book Bus, which visits every school in the district once a year, allowing every student to have a book of their own.

The program started in July 2021 with one bus, requiring a complete inventory swap when the bus switched from elementary to secondary schools. Two years later, the foundation unveiled a second bus.

“We wanted to make sure that when kids got on that bus, they got a really good book, whatever that looks like, whatever draws them,” Sutter says. “When these kids get on the bus, you just don’t know where that will lead. Reading itself can completely transform their lives.”

“I see that on the book bus when they just get so excited. We say, ‘Choose whatever book you want, and it’s yours to keep,’ and they say, ‘Really? Really? We don’t need to bring this book back?’ Sometimes that may be the only book on their shelf. Not always, but sometimes.”

Years ago, Sutter and her colleagues volunteered at an elementary school, and she gave one of her students books for Christmas. They have remained friends ever since. The former student now has an MBA, and “she says the best thing I ever did for her was teach her to love to read. That opened doors of possibilities for her that she would have never known.”

After Sutter retired, she signed up to volunteer in the ReadOKC program Reading Buddies. During the pandemic, Sutter met virtually with two elementary school boys, who persuaded her to extend the program, saying, “Miss Jane, we don’t have anything to do on Tuesdays during the summer. Could we read this summer?” Of course she said yes.

Then she led a seventh-grade girls’ book club through ReadOKC for two years, one time bringing in a childhood friend to speak about her career as a pilot after the students had read a book about early female pilots.

“It gives me such joy and purpose,” says Sutter, who also serves as the president of Harding Fine Arts Academy Foundation. “I think it’s important for people at all ages, stages, and seasons of life to have a sense of purpose. And it’s just fun!” , APRIL MARCISZEWSKI

The ReadOKC On the Go! Book Buses travel to every Oklahoma City public school. Volunteers are vital to the program. Photographs courtesy of the OKCPS Foundation. For more information okckids.com