Each year with the passing of time, as we draw closer and closer to the Christmas season, it warms my heart to see the outpouring of the American people to the poor and needy people in our nation. This is true on the national level as well as the state and local level. There are thousands, perhaps millions, of poor and needy people who do not have enough to eat, and their children would not have a Christmas gift of any kind if it were not for the caring people who feel a burden and a need to help them. Yes, the American people are truly a giving people. 

There are, however, other needs that need to be met that take considerably longer to achieve, and I would like to tell you about one of those today. We all know the value and importance of literacy in a person’s life, if they are to be educated to the point of having a job or career with sufficient income for a good standard of living. When you think about it, there are few things in our society that a person can do if they can’t read and write. I have been blessed to be the founder of a literacy project here in Conway, Arkansas, that deserves national attention. 

In 2005 a group of local citizens, all volunteers with no compensation, started a literacy project called the Conway Bookcase Project. Each year we provide a personalized oak bookcase and a starter set of books to 50 pre-school children in our local Head Start program. These children’s parents must be low income for them to be in the program. As the founder of the project, for the first three years I personally raised the funds to buy the materials to build the bookcases.

Then in 2008 we started a community-wide annual Bookcase Banquet to raise these funds. We had our 15th annual banquet this past November, and we have had great success with a young man who got one of the first bookcases getting a four-year scholarship to Rice University in Houston, Texas. He graduated with an advanced degree this past year and gives much of the credit for getting him started reading at an early age.

I thought it might be helpful if you could see who was on our committee, because you have these people in your city as well. Me, Randall Aragon (Chief of Police), Ken Ingram (Architect), Phyliss Fry (Director of Head Start), Amanda Moore (Head Librarian of Hendrix College), Scott Morrissey (Publisher of the Log Cabin Democrat), Mickey Cox (Craftsman), Nina Russ (Housewife), Ruth Voss (Director of Faulkner County Library System), Dr. Larry Pillow (Pastor of Cornerstone Baptist Church), Linda Linn (Businesswoman), Nancy Mitchell (Teacher), Linda Hammontree (High School Counsellor).   

The second or third year we got invited to go to our State Capitol, meet with Gov. Mike Beebe and later get a standing ovation by the House of Representatives, which was in session. If you want to start a project in your community, contact me and I will give you a free set of bookcase plans and a copy of my book “My Heartfelt Passion” that has all the details to get a bookcase project under way. Jim Davidson can be contacted at 2 Bentley Drive, Conway, AR., 72034.

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(Jim Davidson is an author, syndicated columnist, and Founder of the Bookcase for Every Child project. Since its inception in the Log Cabin Democrat in 1995, Jim’s column has been self-syndicated in over 375 newspapers in 35 states. (For a personalized copy of “Keep Your Fork” send $25 (includes P&H & TAX) to Jim Davidson, 2 Bentley Dr. Conway, AR 72034)