A west county literacy organization that for 25 years has helped foster a love of reading in Richmond is now struggling to keep its own story from coming to an end.
West County Reads, which says it has distributed 498,685 free books to WCCUSD teachers, students, entire school populations and the public, has been in limbo since it lost its physical space when Stege Elementary closed last summer, said co-founder and Executive Director Robin Wilson, a retired school library media specialist.
The El Sobrante-based nonprofit, which has an inventory of thousands of donated books, ran the Educators’ Book Depot, located in two large Stege portables where district teachers could outfit their classrooms with up to 50 books for cozy recreational reading nooks. Student volunteers from Kennedy High helped Wilson keep the operation running smoothly, even working there on occasional Saturdays.
When the district suddenly permanently closed Stege Elementary for health and safety reasons, the books were hastily boxed up by movers and are now stored at a district facility in the Marina. They are difficult to access, stacked 6 feet high and many feet deep, in unsorted, unlabeled boxes.
An award-winning leader in child literacy
Wilson, who lives in El Sobrante, started her career at 23 at UC Berkeley’s Bancroft library and in 2011 was named El Sobrante Woman of the Year for her work with child literacy. West County Reads was launched in 2001 to promote reading community-wide with book giveaways and projects such as the 2009 publication of a community book called “Richmond Tales, Lost Secrets of the Iron Triangle,” which promoted diversity in literature for young people.
Lost in the moving shuffle: a filing cabinet with the nonprofit’s entire written history and many newspaper clippings telling the story of how it sought to help young children enjoy reading. One of its clever initiatives was the 2005 “take one/leave one” public bookshelf project, funded by Super Bowl donations that paid for red bookshelves to be installed around Richmond.
While that project has been mostly shelved, Wilson said that one day she heard that a man was standing outside of the Richmond Foods Co. asking passersby for books. Apparently patrons of the Clean X-Press laundromat where he worked had become accustomed to finding things to read on the laundromat’s free bookshelf, which hadn’t been restocked due to an ownership change.
“We changed the culture at the laundromat,” Wilson said. “Kids knew they should be able to get books there, and they demanded it of the day supervisor. We had our impact, and it came through in subtle ways like that.”
Robert Rogers, district coordinator for Contra Costa County Supervisor John Gioia, can attest to the program’s influence. He said he met Wilson in 2014 at Verde Elementary School, where she was volunteering to help improve access to children’s reading materials.
“She was in a wheelchair with a badly broken leg from a motorcycle accident … yet she was still there braving the discomfort to work on her passion — reading and literacy for children,” Rogers told Richmondside in an email.
Rogers and Wilson volunteered together reading to children at preschools and community centers in North Richmond, where he said Wilson’s skills outshined his own best efforts to be an entertaining storyteller.
“No one performed quite like Robin, emulating voices, providing sound effects and showing the pictures in just the right way to keep a room full of 4- and 5-year-olds in rapt attention,” Rogers said.
If West County Reads were to close, he said, “The community would be a poorer, less imaginative, less literate, and less happy place for children and families.”
Still getting books to schools even if it means ‘sneaking’ them out
Wilson said the district forgot to formally notify her that Stege was being closed, so she snuck in afterward to recover two pickup truck loads’ worth of books for the 12 new classrooms Stege teachers were setting up at a nearby middle school where the pupils are at until Stege is rebuilt.
Now Wilson has to make an appointment to access the books, and they can no longer be sorted by hand. The space isn’t set up for visitors, but she’s managing to serendipitously deliver random assortments to teachers upon request. In March she gave eight boxes to Lincoln Elementary for its annual family literacy night — an event that has become a treasured tradition, said Principal Taylor Parham. Between 150 and 200 people attended this year.
With literacy being “the most important thing” they do at the Iron Triangle school, Parham said, the free book program has been unbelievably valuable.
“We need to make sure that we’re providing our kids with really engaging books that are in good quality and in good shape,” she said. “That’s what Robin gives us.”
If kids are going to learn to really love reading — the building block for everything in their lives that will follow — they need to be surrounded by books, she said. The school is among the lowest performing in the district on the California assessment test in English/language arts, with most students not meeting standards, according to a report by Richmond Confidential.
“The only way to get better at reading is to do it,” she said, adding that one hour of weekly structured library time isn’t enough.
Before West County Reads’ book depot opened about three years ago as a way to restock classrooms after COVID, west Contra Costa County educators’ only option for free classroom books was to visit a similar free bookstore in Oakland. If Wilson’s program doesn’t continue, it will mean events such as family literacy nights would have to be significantly scaled back, Parham said.
Wilson said she ideally needs two side-by-side physical spaces — one for the huge inventory of books and the other for the public to visit — that can be open after school hours and on weekends. She’s also seeking new advisory board members to help keep West County Reads running.
“We will not reopen unless people step up to help us reopen,” Wilson said.
