RIPL A DREAM OF INCLUSION

A Dream of Inclusivity WL 2262

A personal dream of inclusion for as many young people as possible

Early one Saturday morning eleven years ago I received a phone call from my oldest son living two hundred and fifty miles away in Chicago. He’d just gotten off the phone from speaking with a middle aged lady who was in fact trying to reach me. This happens occasionally as we share the same name.

As it turned out this lady calling from far away New York had a story for me. She recalled my mother as her fourth grade teacher many years ago in the middle 1960’s. She also recalled her personal sorrow back then at having failed once already to move on to fifth grade. She was in fact about to be held back a second time. She described to me how my mother, as one of her teachers, pointed out that everything was fine with all of the young lady's studies with one exception. She simply could not read. To no one's surprise my mother Lorene stepped up at that time and volunteered to tutor her during the summer. She promised the school principal that if the school allowed the young lady to pass she, my mother, would have her reading on a fifth grade level by the start of school the following session. No money or compensation of any kind was ever mentioned. Further, nothing remotely like dyslexia was mentioned or even being considered or acknowledged at the time.

So, history will show that Lorene, a full time fourth grade teacher volunteered on a regular basis as a tutor while still saddled with household duties and raising five youngsters of her own. All the while she was known and appreciated for operating her own personal version of a mini food pantry in the neighborhood. My dad, her husband, was a commercial waste hauler with access to many bent and unlabeled grocery cans as well as day-old bakery goods that were all still completely nourishing. Many other items were added to her give-way stock as supermarkets and bakeries regularly purged their shelves of unfavored items.

I should also mention that somehow Lorene managed in most school semesters to register at a local college for an art class. Art was close to her heart and in 1963 she calmly announced that she wanted to study abroad. In fact she wanted to, no, she intended to study art at the Sorbonne in Paris. She had even been saving bits of money here and there in order to pay for it. We all chipped in and even dad was enthusiastic about it. So the following summer she was off to the Champs-Elysees in Paris.

Mom’s tutoring of the young lady who eventually ended up in New York was a success and the girl moved on in life as did many others Lorene assisted during the times. She, though, did not forget mom’s kind gesture involving extra schooling. Some thirty five or so years later the young lady Lorene helped so long ago now held a master’s degree and was working alongside a large foundation with money to give away. She was actually looking for a way to repay Lorene with a gesture such as the naming of a hospital wing in her honor.

What a great story, I thought at the time. Well, I filed the information away in a place called “up.” It’s still there somewhere today by the way. But, I never forgot that lady’s enthusiasm and good intentions. I thought about it off and on for almost a year. At that time I was in my sixth or seventh year serving as a member of our local library board. In fact I had even served as its president one year. One reason I’d accepted the mayor's appointment to the public library board was because my mother had served on it years before. She too had served as its president one year. This at a time when I’d occasionally witnessed her come home from meetings with tears in her eyes from harsh words laced with racial ineundeos from one or two fellow board members, sometimes hidden and sometimes openly hurtful, toward my mother and or the brown tone color of her skin. Thoughts of the young lady from New York returned sporadically and I dared to dream that there might be a way I too could pay tribute to my mother’s memory and at the same time boost inclusion for the multitude of young people in and around our community. This was undeniably a collective group for whom she had so much love.

Oddly enough that very year, as an award winning chef I had placed first or second in a competition and fundraiser held by our local Botanical Center. It is a beautiful facility attracting large numbers of people through its doors every year. As a thank you for competing in and providing some of the food for their annual fundraiser, they offered a one time use of the facility during the year. Seeing that it was a six or seven hundred dollar venue that was often used for weddings and such, it made me wonder. Thinking of the wonderful tribute a stranger was trying to make so many miles away in honor of my mother, I began to think of possible ways I could do the same thing, perhaps making use of this beautiful facility while including and benefiting the young people in the community as well.

Brainstorming with a daughter and a friend, one of the things we hit upon was a trivia night. We discussed many things but somehow kept coming back to a trivia night. I had only attended one trivia night in my life at the time and the way it was handled I had not left the building very impressed.

Several days later I was in the office of a fellow chef, one for whom I had the utmost respect. I told him my mother’s story and mentioned how we might contribute through something like this idea of a trivia night. I’d hardly given a rough or simple explanation when he excitedly interrupted me saying he had the perfect person to run my trivia night – the one I hadn’t even decided to try yet. He excused himself for a moment. Upon his return he was accompanied by a striking dark haired lovely lady who simply radiated enthusiasm, energy and charm. She did not lack personality or self confidence either.

Her name was Tiffany. Some time in the recent past she had decided to take on the promotion of trivia nights as a hobby and posible moneymaker. She had only a few real trivia events on her resume but she knew the basics well and she really wanted to become a great and popular host. Further she sang, she danced and she did not have any qualms about picking on people. All in fun of course.The rest, getting people in the door, that was going to be up to me. Little did I know at the time that we would be so compatible, and joined at the hip so to speak, for a week or so every September/October for the next nine years. We were both in for an education and wonderful experience. I approached the library with my idea and asked about their status as a 501c3 not for profit and could we use it. They held it – and agreed. So, the Lorene Evans Watts Memorial Fund for children's books and supplies at the Rock Island Public Library was established. All Trivia revenue generated was to go into this fund. It was established as a restricted fund. That is, the library in turn could not touch the principle. Only money generated in the market and earned interest could be used and that only for children's books and supplies.The Rock Island Public Library held money in two banks, competing sort of, though on a very conservative basis with both trying their best to do well with the funds allocated to them. Both experienced up and down quarters but overall they fared well in handling the Library’s funds.

On the evening before our first Trivia Night I went to bed dreaming about making a positive impact and realizing some benefits for the youth of our community. Our first Trivia Night was a success and quite popular from the start. However, the few thousand dollars we generated suggested we were going to be quite a while reaching my initial goal of $50,000. This was a goal I’d felt was modest but do-able. We suggested it be an annual event. I felt that as long as I was able to help the Botanical Center with their fundraiser and they reciprocated, we could continue to hold our Trivia Night. I enjoyed the challenge at the botanical gardens and I was winning year after year. None of that hurt our Trivia Night expectations. If this was going to work though, we had to find ways to generate more cash at our event. By the third year I began to get fairly creative. I formed a committee. That helped in designating jobs, assignments and in recruiting.The committee proved especially helpful in securing articles for our raffle table. Not only did we sell seats at the tables, we sold sponsors of the tables and placed placards with their ads on the tables. I hired a magician to roam in between games. My good friend, a former NFL player, sat by the door and signed autographs. I had a shrimp cocktail station, with donated shrimp laced with a great sauce I created, and manned by one of my beautiful daughters. We requested and received 10% of the bar for the evening. Of course we had our silent auction items, thanks to great work by the committee. Tiffany had the usual fund raiser mulligans and such. In between games she held games like “dead or alive,” “true or false.” They both raised dollars while people waited for updated scores. We set up a table with coloring books and crayons where people could be put in jail for a round. Of course it cost a participant ten dollars to put them there and they could be bailed out with yet another person’s five dollar contribution. By far one of the most exciting and profitable ideas came from the introduction of a Celebrity Geek. My first Geek was the former mayor. Mark, a great friend and furthermore a friend of the public library, was more than happy to do it . He was a hit and I knew we also had a hit in the Celebrity Geek. You see the Celebrity Geek had all the answers to the upcoming questions for each game. But, you had to bid for and pay for his presence at your table for the round.The Geek was a hit. The next year my NFL friend, Booker, served as the Geek. He was followed the next year by the current mayor and on it went. Father Dan from the catholic high school made for one of the best Celebrity Geeks of all. Students from the school purchased a whole table and most everyone had a fun evening.

By year six we had a fine tuned program. I felt and still do that we would be hard pressed to get one hundred or one hundred fifteen people in a room for a game like that and generate five or six thousand dollars in a single evening. But, we were doing just that. Twice a year the children's section of the library was getting the benefit of long lists of books and tapes purchased. In March 2019 the Rock Island Public Library in partnership with the Davenport Iowa library, along with several local service clubs, gathered students on both sides of the Mississippi River for presentations from award winning author Jason Reynolds. Author of Ghost, Long Way Home, For Every One,The Boy in the Black Suit and many more titles as a nationally recognized children’s book author and speaker, Reynolds entertained and inspired local students as well as audiences from outlying communities twenty five and thirty miles away. As chairman of the Lorene Evans Watts Memorial children's book fund, I was quite proud to know we assisted with funding this project.

After a simply wonderful nine year run, COVID 19 hit. And wouldn’t you know, less than a thousand dollars short of our goal, we found ourselves looking for a new and exciting idea to extend the run of the Lorene Evans Watts Memorial Fund for children's books and supplies at the RIPL. We will meet that goal thanks to some great supporters befriended during our nine year run. Currently we are kicking around and brainstorming ideas. My excitement has not waned as the Rock Island Public Library prepares to open a new branch – named in honor of Lorene Evans Watts! That excites me. Because I know the sky's the limit now and we can set a new goal and create a new project not only involving inclusion, but diversity and education as well, for 2022. I also know without a doubt that someone in the future – a grandchild perhaps, a great grandchild, a niece or nephew – may at any time get excited about the fund or our next new effort and produce their own project that will enhance Lorene’s memorial and memory while bringing even more good and inclusion to the youth of our community.

Eudell Watts lll