from the CEO of Brilliant Detroit: Cindy Eggleton.

Cindy Eggleton, welcome to "American Black Journal."

It's a total pleasure to be here with you in particular.

Yeah, it's really great to see you.

So let's start with this program for National Literacy Month that you're involved with with the Little Free Library.

What is it and how can people get involved?

Yeah, so I'm just really thrilled that this has been brought here with national Little Free Libraries.

So what it's called is Read in Color.

It was launched after George Floyd's murder.

And the idea here is to assure that there are books in the middle of neighborhoods that may not be served by libraries or stores, et cetera, that are representative of black and brown people in particular.

And we are one of several national cities that have gotten this, so I'm excited about it.

It will be at 14 locations throughout the city.

Right now, we have installed it in four of our locations.

I'll tell you how we're doing it.

And basically, these little libraries are filled up with beautiful books that are free, that are also from authors of color, and also purchased from local bookstores of color.

So it's really a whole cycle bringing it together.

And in many of the neighborhoods we serve, kids don't have enough access.

There's book deserts, et cetera.

It is critically important that we are able to see ourselves in the books we read as we grow.

We know that it impacts literacy.

We know that it impacts how kids do in school and also adults are in life.

But in addition to that, it really helps set the tone for your hopes and dreams and a better society where we see ourselves and what is around us.

So we're thrilled.

We're hoping to keep this continued.

We have gotten at least 2,500 books right now.

But we are already, our Little Free Libraries are out of books every day, which means that they're being used, and so we wanna keep adding and put as many books in there as possible.

Yeah.

So for folks who don't know, we should spend just a little time talking about what Brilliant Detroit is, what it does, and where it exists in our city.

Yeah, so let me tell you that and then I'll also tell you how that rolls out for each of the neighborhoods.

So Brilliant Detroit exists to create kid success neighborhoods where kids in families, we say belly to eight, have everything that they need in education, health, and family support in the middle of the neighborhood in a walkable area.

It is done in partnership with the neighborhoods.

We don't go into any neighborhood unless invited in.

And once invited in, we hire from the neighborhood and we repurpose a house, this is where we connect in terms of some of your projects, into really a community hub.

And we're about five and a half years old and what I'm really delighted about is that in that time, we've grown to be committed to 14 neighborhoods.

12 locations are existing.

We serve 7,500 people right now, and I would tell you that that growth is entirely because of the neighborhoods.

Because to me, the true assets of Detroit are in the neighborhoods.

We meet so many heroes.

And in fact, that with this rollout is how we're doing each neighborhood when they get a Little Free Library.

We're lifting up somebody from the neighborhood and telling their story as it connects to literacy and books.

What that's looked like is in one of our neighborhoods an eight-year-old boy wrote a book with his dad, so we were able to highlight that.

In another neighborhood, they have an intergenerational reading group.

We were able to highlight that.

Another group, we had a little girl that literally came to our location every day and got a book.

And so each neighborhood has so much beautiful things, but it is because of them.

And we've been able to raise reading levels three levels in this work and actually show outcomes in health and family support that are pretty solid and strong.

But again, it's because the neighborhood owns us as much as us.

And since you've been doing this for five years, I mean, let's think about some of the things that have happened in our neighborhoods over the last five years and the challenges that we face.

But I'm asking everybody right now what they're seeing and hearing as we come out of what we hope at least was the worst of the pandemic.

But of course, we all experienced everything that happened over the last year and a half in these neighborhoods and to our neighbors.

I would love for you just to talk about what things look like in the places where Brilliant Detroit exists right now.

Yeah, so this is where I said my saying of heart and head has changed a heart, head and shoulders.

Our work is built on relationships.

And so we've heard firsthand, I'm gonna give you a couple of examples of what we've seen and heard and how we've moved to support.

So first off, we started out of the gate calling people that are in our network and that we work with every week.

So we had a pretty good indication of how they were feeling and what support they needed.

And we pivoted in some ways to make sure that we were supporting people because we need each other, right?

It's a basic human need.

The first day of really what many called the lockdown we got a call from one of our participants.

It was a Saturday.

She had an eight day old baby.

She was out of formula, she was nervous to breastfeed, and that was her situation.

So we were able to serve her and get formula over there.

And my head and heart, I'm like, "Buy up 30 boxes of formula."

Our staff says, "Do you have any clue what that costs?"

And so we put out a call to the community and we received so many supplies and supports to help others, which that story was repeated again and again and again.

Another thing to say what was happening for people at an individual level, even on our own staff who are all from neighborhoods, is that people were losing people, and we talk about that, but we don't talk about it enough.

And on our own staff, every single staff has lost 1 to 17 people that are close to them.

That's a lot of loss.

And we were able to give $500 out to 750 families during this time in three waves.

The first wave we found that 30% of the families were gonna use that to bury somebody.

That's the situation.

That's collective stress and trauma.

What it means in terms of education right now, we just participated in a study with New America locally and nationally, 30% of parents said, what do they want for this new year?

They want social, emotional support for their kids over academics.

So that tells you what I think we all have to step into and why this work for us is so critical and life giving and life taking, really.

To really take note of we are all going through this, we are in this together.

How can we support each other?

I say, one day you're lifted, one day you need to lift somebody up, and I think that really rings true.

I did see a lot of beauty of people wanting to help others and come together in that way, but it's difficult.

The last thing I would say to that is before the pandemic, look it, our systems weren't working for people.

They just weren't.

And what I think our goal needs to be is not just how do we get through this, but how do we create a system that works better for kids and families?

And that's really hard when you're in the middle of a crisis, and so that's what I wake up every day thinking about.

Yeah.

So let's quickly remind people where they can find information about these Free Little Libraries and these wonderful books that you are giving.

So go on our website.

There's a map of where we are all across the city.

Go and take as many books as you need.

The little libraries are emptied and filled up every day.

If you wanna support in any way, we're doing reading groups around these.

Additionally, if you wanna donate books, all of that is needed and you can get ahold of us at info@brilliantdetroit.org.

This is one thing we can all actually do and it's a needed piece.

Yeah, and we'll put all that information on our website as well.

Cindy Eggleton, it is always great to see you.

It's especially great to see you since I haven't seen you in, I think, more than a year and a half, just like everybody else,