BEVERLY BRADLEY - COPS 'N' KIDS LITERACY PROGRAM

 
 
Beverly Bradley was the speaker at the February 18 meeting of Emmaus Rotary Club.  Beverly is president of the Bethlehem club of Quota International - an organization which seeks to empower and be of service to deaf, hard-of-hearing and speech-impaired individuals, as well as disadvantaged women and children.  After becoming a member of Quota, Beverly learned about their international literacy initiative called Cops 'N' Kids - a program that brings the gift of reading to children and encourages positive relationships between children and police.  Beverly spearheaded efforts to establish a similar program in the Lehigh Valley, but expanded the mission of the program to connect kids to the entire community through literacy.
 
During her talk, Beverly shared several anecdotes highlighting the significant impact that an adult can have on a child's life - simply by sharing a small part of themselves.  She related her experience of inviting former Bethlehem mayor John Callahan to visit Donegan Elementary School, a school located in a particularly impoverished area of the city, to read to the children.  Beverly explained how she encouraged Callahan to shake hands with and give a card with a "good luck" message to each of the 550 students.  Most of the children didn't know who the mayor was, but they knew he was someone important who had taken time to speak to each one of them.  Callahan told Beverly that his day at Donegan was one of the best days of his life. 
 
Beverly also spoke of students at Southern Lehigh who contacted her to do a book drive for children in Africa.  Beverly connected the students with children at Roosevelt Elementary, a school where 98% of the students live in poverty.  Despite being only a short distance away, the Southern Lehigh students had no idea that so many local kids were living in such need.  After several weeks of tutoring and reading to the Roosevelt kids, the Southern Lehigh students realized that the need in our own area was significant and decided to focus their efforts here at home, rather than in Africa.
 
With over 700,000 books distributed to kids in our area thus far, the local Cops 'N' Kids program has changed the future for thousands of local children and demonstrated to every kid who received a book that they are truly valued by their community.