Homewood-Flossmoor students spend MLK Day reading to young kids
FLOSSMOOR, Ill. (CBS) – On Monday, some students traded their day off school for Martin Luther King Jr. Day for a day of service.
And they told CBS 2's Sara Machi that a few hours of their time could bring lasting change to their community.
In the Homewood-Flossmoor wrestling room on Monday, athletes traded takedowns for reading time to a young crowd. It was a lesson in leading by example.
"I wish that when I was younger, I would have had high schoolers come and talk to me, or read to me," said senior Jeremy Thomas. "I would have really enjoyed that."
For Thomas, this is a habit instilled in him.
"Growing up Black, my parents emphasized reading a lot because it was a right that we didn't used to have," he said. "My dad specifically, he made sure that I read a lot when I was younger."
"I'm happy that he's aware of what is going on, and the fact that literacy is a life or death skill I think," said coach and biology teacher Evan Roberts. "I think it's something that if you look at like prison rates, people that get incarcerated are reading at a third grade, or lower, level. So what we do as educators is, we promote reading. We encourage them to understand that a book is a window and a mirror."
Roberts penned his own children's series.
"I didn't even realize that there was such a need for children's books until a met a librarian, who just happened to mention to me that finding books that have children of color is such a big challenge now."
Some of those books were in the hands of readers at Homewood-Flossmoor. Each page flip is a small step to making these kids find their happy ending.
CBS 2 wanted to find the statistics that Roberts mentioned regarding literacy and the prison population, and here's what we found: The "National Adult Literacy Survey" found that 70% of the incarcerated adults cannot read at a fourth-grade level.
This was just one of several MLK Day events around Flossmoor. They started participating in a Day of Service in 2015 and the village's events have expanded past a one-day schedule.
