Cross & Crescent

Ironically, retirement just turned into a new starting point for Kermit Myers (Colorado-Boulder 1951). At the age of 65, he left the business world and began his focus on charity. He began tutoring children at inner-city schools in Chicago, Illinois. He quickly realized that many of the kids had no books at home.

“The tutor program in Chicago had people coming in for one or two hours a week helping the teachers; read and what not. It was pretty inefficient,” says Myers. “So I went to the principal and said what about a lending library?”

Myers knew his grandkids had old books they had outgrown and assumed other suburban kids had the same. In 1999, Book Worm Angels was born.

The program that began servicing that one school now serves 115 Chicago Public School System elementary schools, which includes 3,000 classrooms and 70,000 students.

The Angels

Book Worm Angels has organized over 650 book drives in the past eight years through public and parochial elementary schools, school districts, Rotary Clubs, scouting organizations, and businesses. To date they have collected just over one million books.

“In suburbs they are up to their necks in books kids have outgrown and they don’t know what to do with them,” says Myers. “They are happy to give them to us and we are happy to take them off their hands.”

True to Myers’ vision, Book Worm Angels has pledged to serve the bottom 25 percent of the schools, but he says 95 percent could probably use his service.

The program works as an in-class loaning library in elementary schools. When a school becomes part of the program, Book Worm Angels gives the school seven to nine gently used books per student, or about 6,000 books for the school. The teachers themselves pick out the books for their classroom. Each year thereafter Book Worm Angels gives each school 1,500 books so their supply can be completely replenished over a four-year span.

Myers has two rules for schools participating in the Book Worm Angels Program.

1. No child can be punished or fined for lost books. Myers admits, though, that this doesn’t seem to be a problem. “The kids are great about returning the books,” he says. “Teachers say that kids bring the book back so they can get more.” This explains the low 5 percent book loss rate.
2. The school’s principal is required to send a letter home to parents asking them to turn off the TV and read with their children.

Many school libraries don’t allow books to go home, and public libraries are often far away and dangerous for children to commute to, Myers explains. Thus, being able to supply children with in-house reading for pleasure is important.

“Kids might see that books are fun to read,” says Myers. “These kids don’t have books at home, so if you get to them by the third or fourth grade they can sign up for Reading is Fun. They read more, learn more, do better in school, and in time become more productive citizens.”

Growing the Angels

At the age of 77, Myers and Book Worm Angels are still looking for ways to expand the program. They are currently planning to expand to Cleveland, Ohio; Milwaukee, Wisconsin; and Cincinnati, Ohio. They also have made a partnership with a nearby recycling center where they expect to be able to receive 20,000 children’s books a week.

“Thrift Recycling Management came to us,” says Myers. “They get a million books a month. They sell the paper of damaged books to recyclers, romantic novels to India, and put some on Amazon; but there is no market for children’s books.”

Myers says there are few programs like Book Worm Angels across the country, and he encourages retirees to start a chapter in their area.

College

Myers attended a junior college for two years in the Chicago area, and then decided to leave the flat Midwest and hitchhike to Colorado. He finished his schooling at the University of Colorado-Boulder, where he joined Lambda Chi Alpha.

“I liked the guys at Lambda Chi, but father was also a founder of the chapter at Northwestern in 1916,” says Myers. “I never knew my dad; he died when I was a year old, and I wanted to have something in common with him.”