Books for Kids Project

WESTERN KENTUCKY BOOKS FOR KIDS PROJECT

On the night of December 11, 2021, an extraordinarily large and powerful F4 tornado swept through rural western Kentucky, staying on the ground for over 165 miles, cutting through 11 counties.  58 people died as a result. Some of the damage, however, isn't represented by missing loved ones, piles of debris and destroyed homes.  Some of the damage remains in the minds of the kids who were affected.  The ARCH Coalition has recently finished a project to provide books on resilience, coping with fear, dealing with loss and understanding storms, as well as comfort items to provide a sense of safety and security to the kids of western Kentucky who were impacted by the storms.  We originally planned to do this project in only two of the counties that were hard-hit, Hopkins (our home base) and Muhlenberg, just to our southeast.  However, when our volunteers started reaching out to the various school Family Resource and Youth Service Centers, the enthusiasm for the project and stated need was so great that we decided to try to find additional funding to expand the project into all the western Kentucky counties that were hit.  Thanks to major grants from the Community Foundation or West Kentucky, Anthem Blue Cross Medicaid and the Owensboro Health Muhlenberg Community Hospital, we were ultimately able to distribute over 5000 age-appropriate books to kids from pre-K age to high school.  These books were chosen to help kids to cope not just with the issues resulting from the tornado, but also to help them understand their emotions and mental health needs.

We intended for this project to be a one-time thing, but the response was so great that we are going to try to continue this project in the future, perhaps annually. Mental health and anxiety are major issues for our kids, and it's not going away.  This is also a great way to get books into homes, which has been shown to be a key determinant in early childhood development.

In addition to our funders, both large and small, we would like to thank the Hopkins County-Madisonville Public Library for their help with this project.  They gave up a big chunk of their storage room for us to store and sort our books.