Hundreds Read On The Green

by Thomas Breen

Alisha Crutchfield leads one of dozens of reading groups.

The Green transformed for the morning into a sea of orange and blue.

LEAP leader Henry Fernandez: “This is a very special day for all of LEAP.”

With the illustrated children’s book Strollercoaster perched on his knee, 11-year-old Jeremiah Williams read aloud to a half-dozen fellow LEAP campers Friday morning — as the local youth-focused nonprofit transformed the Green into one big literacy party.

Jeremiah was one of hundreds of orange-T-shirt-wearing campers to participate in Leadership, Education and Athletics in Partnership’s (LEAP) annual “Read-In,” which also brought out 200-plus LEAP counselors and 80 adult volunteers.

“This is a very special day for all of LEAP,” said the organization’s director, Henry Fernandez, before he handed off the mic to a lineup of officials — Gov. Ned Lamont, Mayor Justin Elicker, Supt. Madeline Negrón, State Sens. Martin Looney and Gary Winfield, U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal, and U.S. Rep. Rosa DeLauro among them. Each exhorted the transporting, connecting power of reading.

“Reading opens up so many worlds for you,” DeLauro said, as she went on to quote Dr. Seuss’s Oh, the Places You’ll Go! (“You have brains in your head. / You have feet in your shoes. / You can steer yourself any direction you choose.”)

Yes, criminal justice reform is important, said Winfield, a long-time co-chair of the state legislature’s Judiciary Committee. But “reading is really where it’s at.” He spoke of how much of the world he was able to experience — and look forward to — by reading as a child, and how he reads every day with his kids now.

Each led the campers and counselors — standing in a circle around the lower Green — in chants celebrating reading and LEAP.

This event “shows how an entire community is rallying around reading,” said Negrón, before leading the hundreds of attendees in a chant of “S-A-L-T-A-R,” which is Spanish for “leap.”

Breaking off into dozens of small groups, volunteers and kids spread across the Green to dive into books.

Alisha Crutchfield led her kids through Amari Goes to the Doctor, written by Saneisha Roberts and illustrated by Joshua Okoro-sokoh.

Tameka Grant-Mack took her kids page by page through Say Something! by Peter H. Reynolds.

And — flipping the script of adults reading to children — Jeremiah swapped places with volunteer Divine Holmes to read Strollercoaster, written by Matt Ringler and illustrated by Raúl the Third and Elaine Bay. Holmes said she volunteered for Friday’s Read-In because she lives near downtown and because she has multiple friends who work for LEAP. She had fully planned on reading to the kids in her group — but they said they wanted to read to her instead. Which is how Strollercoaster ended up in Jeremiah’s hands.

Jeremiah — who just finished up the school year at the new Edmonds Cofield Preparatory Academy, and plans to enter sixth grade at ESUMS next year — said he felt good about how Friday’s reading went.

What was his favorite part of the book, all about a dad and his child strolling through their neighborhood?

“Probably when they went into the tunnel,” Jeremiah said. “I like tunnels.”

He also likes reading. When does he usually read at home? “Any time.”

Jeremiah said this was his second year in a row participating in LEAP’s Read-In. It was his first, however, being a reader as opposed to being read to. He said he was happy with how it went.

More more more reading.

And trombone playing, by Isaiah Cooper.

Supt. Negrón: “S-A-L-T-A-R!”