Lunch, Literacy and a Local Hero

TAMPA BAY, FL—Since the educational landscape for most American children has temporarily changed due to the COVID-19 pandemic, creative ways to prevent slides in reading skills for pre-school, elementary, and middle schoolers are imperative. Jennifer E. Frances is a local literacy hero and it only took her a few days to reinvent ways that she could remain relevant and useful in her hometown community of Tampa Bay, Florida.

Once a region has developed processes and procedures to support urgent needs for healthcare, housing, and the eradication of hunger, there exist many other services that are almost as vital and contribute to the squashing of America’s growing list of economic and ethnic disparities.

Bess the Book Bus (Bess) founded 17 years ago by Jennifer E. Frances is a one-of-a-kind mobile literacy outreach that distributed over 35,000 brand new books locally last year and reached 28,899 children who all had the opportunity to choose at least one new book they could take home to their family library. Nationally, Bess visited 83 towns in 22 states providing 57,041 books to 48,346 children and families. 2019 was Bess the Book Bus' most successful year to date, and so it's no wonder that Jennifer wants to keep up the momentum!

Since news of the pandemic canceled a cross country tour and took Bess’ tires off the road, Jennifer wanted to remain relevant and distribute books locally as she sheltered in place with her family. That meant Jennifer had to pivot her programming and come up with some different ideas on how to get books into homes. Jenn reached out to her existing partners at local schools in both Hillsborough and Pinellas Counties, community action groups, newly homeschooling parents and to her program collaborators at Feeding Tampa Bay. In this effort, she developed wonderful partnerships where children and families are offered free books when they visit meal program locations. Families in the Tampa Bay area are now able to procure lunch and literacy on a weekly basis, exhibiting a magnificent collaboration that totally makes sense and demonstrates one of my favorite quotes about reading by author William Nicholson, “We read to know we're not alone.”

Every book and every box of books gets fully disinfected before it is delivered to the site. In addition to Bess’s new partnerships, Jennifer is also working with long time collaborators such as the Juvenile Detention Center in St. Petersburg and Layla’s House in Tampa. You can follow along with Bess's journey by visiting the Bess to Book Bus Facebook page.

Bess works with children whose situations make them the most in need of enrichment services, including their identified school weaknesses, home life, and current economic need. Since rolling out in 2003, Bess has provided approximately 800,000 books to children throughout Hillsborough County and beyond as part of its' national reading tours. Bess stocks books for the youngest emerging readers, to teens, and preliterate adults. "We are building home libraries for children while building enthusiasm for the reading experience. There is nothing like being able to pick out your own brand-new book, open the cover, explore new worlds, and gain a bridge to knowledge. We believe that access and choice are key to building lifelong readers, and our unique approach reaches budding readers where they are,” stated Jennifer, “It’s evolved into my life’s work and I am dedicated to continuing this journey.”

A visit to the Navajo Nation in Arizona was canceled, but that did not stop Bess. The kids on the reservation just received 1500 books, shipped instead of hand-delivered. This story of generosity and fervor has attracted attention from across America. When we search for nuggets of humanity in this new pandemic reality, we don’t have to look far.

Jennifer dreams of upgrading her decade-old bus one day soon, with a new vehicle that has a warranty. Bess the Book Bus is not actively fundraising as frontline organizations and healthcare initiatives should be the priority, however, if you are interested in supporting the literacy efforts go the the Bess the Book Bus website.