The St. Elmo Reading Center at Thankful Episcopal Church will be closing its doors for good this fall unless new volunteers can be found to keep the center open.
For 12 years, the reading center has provided kids with a place and the tools they needed to pursue a love of reading. With donated books, interactive community programs and a safe, comfortable space for kids to come and read, the center was a hit with many members of the community, according to its volunteers.
Anne Stadler volunteers to read with children at the St. Elmo Reading Center.The center’s closing follows Director Linda Cooper’s retirement. She has been leading the center’s efforts since 2006.
“What she offered to the community was special and unique,” said Reading Center volunteer Talley Carroll. “She instilled the importance of reading in children.”
United Way opened the center in the early 2000s as one of several reading centers around the Chattanooga area. The goal was to equip children with books and reading materials to which they otherwise would not have had access. Already a director of children’s ministries at her church in Red Bank, Cooper took on the additional position of director of the St. Elmo Reading Center after the former director passed away.
Cooper’s retirement has been a long time coming. Her battle with Meniere’s disease, a disease of the inner ear which causes extreme vertigo, has affected her daily routines so much that it was becoming impossible for her to continue her efforts at the center, she said.
Carroll said the programs Cooper started at the Reading Center have been monumental in the lives of community members. Her book club provided a social and educational outlet for home-schooled children, who, from ages 3-13, could come and enjoy snacks, crafts and books together. She even took books to the children who couldn’t make it to the center themselves. For several summers, Cooper would drive down to the South Chattanooga Recreation Center from her home in Red Bank and read to the kids at summer camp.
“The kids knew me by name and were excited to see me coming in with my books,” Cooper said.
She recounted one of her proudest days of reading to children at the rec center.
“I had been reading out loud to a group of third-graders. I finished the book, closed it, laid it down, and they applauded. They asked if they could have a copy of the book to take home,” she said. “I ended up running out of copies to give everyone, and ended up just handing out any books they wanted from my car.”
In addition to reading and socialization, the St. Elmo Reading Center offers classes like yoga.The Reading Center is currently looking for more volunteers and a new director in the hopes of keeping the center open, but Thankful Episcopal has already informed its parish and community members that the center will, more than likely, not reopen after the summer break.
“The thing I liked about it the most was that it was structured but it wasn’t school,” said Carroll. “It wasn’t ‘you have to,’ it was ‘you get to.’ That’s the feeling that I want kids to have about reading – you don’t have to, you just get to. And the center offered that to the kids.”
Cooper, though sad about having to leave the center, is looking forward to her retirement.
“I’m just going to take a step back because I’ve been so busy,” she said. “This illness hit me and knocked my props out from under me about a year and a half ago, and it became quite stressful. I just need to take some time for me.”
Cooper added that if her disease were to go into remission and she was able to work again, she would gladly volunteer herself at the Reading Center and help out with whatever needed.
“My intention was never to teach reading, it was to inspire a love of reading and a love of books,” she said. “It might not be a large population of children, but it’s worth it if I’ve touched a few.”
Email Carley Olejniczak at colejniczak@timesfreepress.com.
The St. Elmo Reading Center offers children a space and the resources to practice reading.