October 2018

As an Executive Director of a small non profit the hats you wear change from minute to minute- from Accountant, Fundraiser, Program Coordinator, marketing and communication expert, to Human Resources – essentially a full time juggler. As part of a means to stay organized and manage this multi-disciplinary workload I began to “schedule” myself at certain times of the week for marketing, program development, management, fund development. I attempt to wear each hat at a different moment throughout the day, instead of wearing all the hats at the same time, but simultaneously having awareness and knowledge that the other hats exist.

Wearing my Director of Operations hat, I recently asked each of our staff and volunteers to assist in managing our newly established Book Spots. Each of us has to pop over to our “adopted” spot once a week to clean, restock and reorganize the books.

For the past three weeks every Wednesday, wearing my program officer hat, I visit DHS Pawtucket. My visits these past few weeks have been the most rewarding and inspiring experiences. Nothing has made me more grounded and motivated to do my job then visiting this spot each week.

Yesterday morning alongside the security guard of DHS, I unloaded 8 boxes of books from my car. Four different people held open the door so we could pass by with the handtrucks. As I was loading the books onto the emptied shelf and cleaning up I found we had one interactive book with sounds still in the box. A young mother with a baby girl that had to be close to a year old was standing near me holding her baby and trying to keep her busy while waiting to be seen. . The baby was squiggling and squirming, like most babies do when they want to run and play. I quietly handed her the box with the book inside and said she could keep it. For the next 10 minutes, while I was still working on cleaning up the shelves, the baby and her mother interacted with the book. No more crying, or trying to get out of her arms. Together they flipped the pages and pushed the buttons. The tension in that mother’s shoulders relaxed for those few short minutes

This is why Books Are Wings exists. This is why it is so important to provide children and families with access to BOOKS where they are.

~ Jocelynn White, Executive Director, Books Are Wings

“The best way to find yourself, is to lose yourself in the service of others.” —Mahatma Gandhi