RESOURCES:
Our Community Reads Contact Info
Our Community Reads on Facebook
Our Community Reads on Instagram
Our Community Reads on YouTube
TRANSCRIPTION:
David Fair: This is 89.1 WEMU, and I'm David Fair. When we think about ways to build community and unity, there are likely a few different things that come to your mind. I have a question. Was reading one of them? Our Community Reads works under the mantra, "A community that reads together, grows together." But this is about much more than a big book club. It's education. It's interaction. It's even travel. Our guest this morning is the founder and executive director. Her name is Kallista Marie, and she's just back from a trip to Boston with a group of youngsters in the program. And, Kallista, welcome back to WEMU!
Kallista Marie: Thanks for having me, David!
David Fair: What, in your experience, led to that philosophy that a community that reads together grows together?
Kallista Marie: It was honestly something that was downloaded. I remember being in my kitchen. And it just sort of came to me--came to my mind. And I believe that the divine gave that to me and was starting to prepare my path for what we now see as Our Community Reads and this heart work that I get to do.
David Fair: With that philosophy in mind, how have you developed programming that serves that mission?
Kallista Marie: Oh, that's such a good question! So, we have a YouTube channel where it's "Our Community Reads with Kallista Marie," where you can see people all over the community. A large portion of them are Black because I really feel representation is important. And they're reading picture books because anybody that knows me knows I love a good picture book. And we also have the Topaze Reading Circle, which is a program that was really birthed last year in 2024, and it is to honor my mother who transitioned in 2019. Her name was Topaze Taharja. And it is going into schools. We've gone into Erickson and Estabrook, and we also have a teen reading club. We've done busses and books with Educate Youth, and all of that is part of the Topaze Reading Circle because we read the same book.
David Fair: As you've just noted, under the Our Community Reads umbrella, there are a number of programs, and you mentioned your mother, Topaz, and the Topaz Reading Circle initiative. What about your relationship with your mother and her influence on you informed Our Community Reads?
Kallista Marie: My mother was a free spirit. She was a knowledge seeker. And she lost her mother when her mother was 28. So, my mother lost her when she was probably about, I don't know, 12, 13, 14. And so, she was very passionate about pouring into me and her younger siblings, which she had seven of. So, she was always reading. She read with us, to us. She took me to Jamaica when I was like in seventh grade for getting good grades. She always talked about self-love, self-awareness, and how that colored your world. And I saw her live that life. And she just was so full of life when I was growing up. And she was a child advocate. My mother was a childhood advocate. She always had other people's kids with her.
David Fair: This is 89.1 WEMU, and we're talking with our Community Reads founder and executive director Kallista Marie. Literacy and education are not individual endeavors. Obviously, reading is foundational to all that comes in life. As they say, "It takes a village." In the village you're creating, how do you foster the connection between students, family, schools, and community?
Kallista Marie: I love inviting trusted community members and family members in to read with us. So, we do something called a Topaze Reading Community Circle on our Sundays. We meet 10 Sundays a year. And we invite them to come in, and we have a book table. And the kids get to pick a book, and the parents and the community members get to sit at a table and read with them. And we have snacks. And then, I'll also work with YCS a lot--Ypsilanti Community Schools, and we go in. And I have community members come in and read to the different classrooms, and we do a lot of family events we do. A lot of community events where we're reading out in the community. When we have a Juneteenth Festival, we've had people reading on the stage. When we have different things, we'll have a table where we are free books. So, I try and incorporate books and literacy in everything because I wanted to be normalized.
David Fair: There is experiencing the world through books, and there is experiencing the world through, well, experience. An important part of what you were doing with some of the younger kids involves travel. For all too many, the world is very small. It is in the community or even the neighborhood in which you reside. So, when you get to take kids and travel and see a different part of the world and a different way of looking at life, what about that adds to the personal development and expansion of opportunity?
Kallista Marie: I'll share a little story. So, we just got back from Boston yesterday, literally last night. One of my queens, who is in sixth grade, we were walking down a beautiful neighborhood. And we saw these orange doors, and they were gorgeous. And they had it decorated with pumpkins and things like that. And we were talking about the door and I said, "Look how pretty that door is!" And her mind was blown that you could have a different colored door. And she was like, "Can my parents have doors like that?" And I said, "I'm not sure about your parents. If they wanted to, they could." I said, "But what I do know is that you're young enough to create a life where you will be able to build a house that looks like you want it to look." And the look on her beautiful little brown eyes and how big they got when she realized that's possible. And this is just doors. And there were so many things that our kids see that they don't see here at home from the way that people drive and the way we do things here and why do they do it here and we do it there and the type of bags that they have here and we don't have that at home. It just opens them up to see that the world is not just like what you see every day in your neighborhood.
David Fair: How much of that do you encounter where a young person has already been socialized to think that they're as high in life as they can get?
Kallista Marie: We have those conversations. And I think you can have those conversations when you're here in Ypsilanti. When you take a child to a waterfall, when you take the child to Stanford University, when you them to Howard, and when they interact with people that look like them in those spaces, that conversation hits different. So, when you are talking to a sophomore at Howard or a freshman who went to MIT, or somebody that is in a different place, and they get to tell you their story, then when you have those conversations, like, "This could be you," and "Let me talk to you about the path that you need to be on to get there." So, this weekend, we talked a lot about, "How do I get from here to there?" And I had them repeat it. I need you to think about that every day. How do I get from here to there. How do get from here to there?
David Fair: And one of the places they visited was Harvard.
Kallista Marie: Yes!
David Fair: And did they have an interest in finding a way to get there?
Kallista Marie: Some of them absolutely did! They were very sad when it was time to get on the plane and come home, and they showed that in different ways. But absolutely! And we had a wonderful tour guide named Jordan, who was a sophomore at Harvard, and they were so enamored. And she took them to a place that was a cafeteria, and it sort of looked like the Harry Potter theme, and it was beautiful. And we took a picture. And the girls were really excited to be on campus. It was a lot of walking, because Harvard is a very big campus. But, yeah, they were very intrigued! They were very, very intrigued!
David Fair: We're talking building community and unity with Kallista Marie. She is founder and executive director of the Ypsilanti-based nonprofit Our Community Reads. Now, when you go on one of these trips with the kids, I suspect you are not only giving something to them, which is your mission, but I'm going to guess that they end up giving something to you. Am I on track?
Kallista Marie: Absolutely, absolutely! Yeah! And first of all, it's a constant reminder why we do what we do. Because, as we know, when you are in community work, it is work. It is a lot of work. But when you're seeing the world, my mother used to always say walking through Ypsi when I was little. We would stop and smell the flowers, and she said, "I always saw the world through your eyes, and it was always a refresher." So, when I get to see these girls, and we got on the subway, and they were so excited to get on this jam-packed subway and to see the subway coming down and even how excited they get getting on an escalator, which, to us, that may not seem like a lot. But if it's something you've not experienced before, I love giving them the space to get excited. That is everything I'm so passionate about joy. And it fills my cup. And it fills my cup, so that when I get back to my working table, I know my why. And then, it has inspired me to go back to school. So now, I'm back at Eastern Michigan to get my bachelor's degree. If I'm talking to them about education, I want to walk it, too.
David Fair: I find that inspirational. But there's another side to joy--the opposite side. And as part of this effort to build community and lift people on that journey to become them best selves, there's trauma to overcome sometimes. And how much of what you do is about healing?
Kallista Marie: I would definitely say a huge part. And that is something that I've learned along this journey. We will be five years old in December. And I did not start out understanding the impact of trauma generationally. And we have definitely come to a place where we have Books and Brews, which is a thing that we have with Black Men Read at different breweries, where we invite people to come out and read picture books. Picture books can be very healing. We have a lot of things where I just talk to parents, and I'm realizing that the inner child of the caregivers needs so much love a lot times. And we raise our children from that place. It's our inner child, a lot a times, driving the car. So, I have learned to be more in tune when I'm listening to parents talk to me, their caregivers, because that is going to cultivate the type of children that's in our community and that's in our schools. So, overcoming trauma, recognizing trauma, and realizing that we all want to be seen, we all want to be valued, we all want to be empowered, and we all want to be loved. And that is huge, whether you're six or whether you're 36, 56, we all have that desire.
David Fair: Well, you are about to hold your first major fundraiser this coming weekend, and it's titled "Fun for Funds." And in a societal sense, is it sometimes overlooked or forgotten that reading and using reading to build community and foundational life successes is perhaps even more fun in a communal setting?
Kallista Marie: Oh my gosh, it is! And I can say that because I've witnessed it. I remember Black Mary...not Black Mary, but Yodit Mesfin-Johnson. She invited me to come read at an event that she was having. And as people were eating lunch, myself and Will, who is the current executive director of NEW, we both read picture books. And when I tell you the engagement of the adults, there were no children in that room. The engagement of the adults in that room, I think, one of our books may have been "The Rabbit Listened," which is a phenomenal book that therapists have suggested. And we read another book, and it just connects you. Picture books have a way of connecting you, and if all of you have the same book, man, it is amazing! And I've seen children be so much more engaged and raise their hand and have questions when they're able to look at the pictures as someone is reading to them. It never, ever fails! It is a game-changer!
David Fair: Well, I'd like you to paint me a picture, Kallista, of what lay ahead in the year to come for Our Community Reads.
Kallista Marie: That's exciting! So, what we are looking for is we're really looking for continuing the Topaze Reading Circle and more Village Blueprint. Village Blueprint is the program that we have for the caregivers of the children that are in our Queens and Pharaohs Club. And I really want to do more things where if parents, especially Black mothers, want to go back to school to either get their GED, their high school diploma, or they want to begin on a college track. I would really love to raise funds to encourage them if you're going to school and you go for two or three semesters and you're doing your homework and you doing your grades, we are here to support you and then to be able to take them on a day trip, because, sometimes, we need inspiration. It needs to be incentivized. That's why parents gave us allowance, right? We need something to encourage us, to pull us out of our daily habits, to say, "Okay, I'm going to go do my work, I'm going to do this, I going to that, because I know if I continue this track, I get to go to New York for a day. I get go to Colorado for a day." I really want to create an opportunity for parents to know it's not too late for you.
David Fair: Well, I am looking forward to all that lay ahead, and we will have more conversations about it. Thank you so much for your time and for the conversation today, Kallista!
Kallista Marie: Thanks for having me, David!
David Fair: That is Kallista Marie. She is founder and executive director of Ypsilanti-based Our Community Reads. For more information on the organization, its mission, how to become involved, and on Saturday's Fund for Funds fundraiser in Ypsilanti, pay a visit to our website when you have a moment. We'll get you everywhere you need to go. I'm David Fair, and this is your community NPR station, 89.1 WEMU-FM Ypsilanti. Celebrating 60 years of broadcasting from the campus of Eastern Michigan University!
Non-commercial, fact based reporting is made possible by your financial support. Make your donation to WEMU today to keep your community NPR station thriving.
Like 89.1 WEMU on Facebook and follow us on X (Twitter)
Contact WEMU News at 734.487.3363 or email us at studio@wemu.org
