Credit: Photo by Christian Hansen for The New York Times
Each week for the past eight years, with a suitcase stuffed with books, librarian Colbert Nembhard leaves the Morrisania Branch Library in the Bronx for a 10 minute walk to the Crotona Inn homeless shelter.
Once there he turns “the shelter’s day care room or its dimly lighted office into an intimate library” and the magic begins.
Mr. Nembhard goal is to encourage children to have a lifelong relationship with libraries and its’ working. His program has served as the model for a citywide initiative to place small libraries at shelters for families. 30 shelters are now participating and in September, the Library of Congress recognized New York City’s Department of Homeless Services for best practices in literacy for this Library Pilot Project.
And if that’s not enough to earn Mr. Nembhard librarian knighthood then it will be the smiles on the faces of the kids at the Crotona Inn homeless shelter when they hear the wheels of the suitcase coming down the hall for library time that should do it.
Credit: Photo by Christian Hansen for The New York Times
More at the New York Times : A Bronx Librarian Keen on Teaching Homeless Children a Lasting Love of Books