An organization called Reach-A-Child delivered 32 backpacks filled with books Nov. 7 to the Oconto County Sheriff’s Department to distribute to children in crisis situations.
The group’s goal is to provide the backpacks to all 650 first-responder entities in Wisconsin, said delivery driver and former board chairman Cory Erickson.
“We’re in 375 of them already. We’ve been doing this since 2006,” Erickson said.
Traditionally, children in a crisis have been given a teddy bear or other stuffed animal to comfort them, he said.
“The problem with a teddy bear is the child in a crisis situation grabs the teddy bear and hugs it, then looks up and sees a burning house,” Erickson said. “Whereas a book — the mind can only handle one thing at a time, and if you can get a child focused on a book, you can keep them distracted from the horribleness that’s going on.”
Sheriff Todd Skarban said when he was 12 years old, his best friend was killed in a bicycle accident in front of his house, and while deputies took it on themselves to keep an eye on Skarban, there was no formal help for children who have been traumatized.
“Programs like Reach-A-Child go a long way toward helping children in situations like I was,” he said.
Each “reach bag” costs about $150, and the organization accepts donations of new and gently used books, but a grant from AT&T has been invaluable in distributing as many as 30,000 books a year, Erickson said.
Each reach bag has 20 books, appropriate for children in a range from 2 to 12, he said.
“You let the child pick out a book, and then you read the book to the child,” Erickson said. “After you’re done, you put that book in a drawstring backpack and they can walk away with the book in the backpack.”
When agencies run low on books, Reach-A-Child will refill the backpacks, he said. For information, visit reachachild.org.
wbluhm@newmedia-wi.com
Reach-A-Child helps kids in crisis
