Interview with Volunteer Claudia Lewis
BY Johanna Contreras
Claudia Lewis is an active volunteer at the Brooklyn Book Bodega. She was a preschool teacher for over 27 years and is passionate about literacy and early childhood education. She volunteers at the Brooklyn Book Bodega twice a week fulfilling orders and refilling shelves with donations.
What’s your background and how did you get connected to Brooklyn Book Bodega?
I’ve been a preschool teacher for 27 years, and I had two of Seema’s kids in my class. We’ve known each other since the oldest went through preschool. I knew she was starting Brooklyn Book Bodega through another coworker of ours. This year, I quit working and I had taken my entire book collection with me when I left my job. One of my best friends is a teacher as well so I gave her a lot of the books. Then I had all these books left over. I said “Oh! Maybe Seema wants them for the Brooklyn Book Bodega.” I asked if she needed any volunteers since I have all this free time. So I started volunteering and it’s the highlight of my week.
Why do you enjoy volunteering for Brooklyn Book Bodega?
It’s a combination of things: it puts some structure into my week that I know that I have this one thing I have to do. It gets me around other amazing people. Also I am such a book person—I have books in my house everywhere. For me to be able to get books to people who don't necessarily have them, to have the variety, to me is amazing.
For me, reading was one of those things—to be able to escape into another world. And it also doesn't have to be a solitary experience. My favorite thing to do as a preschool teacher was to read books to kids. It was my mission to make sure that we had as diverse a collection as possible so that everybody was represented, even people who weren’t in the classroom. I probably should have been a librarian!
I used to work at a school that had many privileged families. After that, it’s nice to be able to do something and feel like you’re contributing and making a difference for people where it actually makes a difference.This feels like it’s really a community thing to make sure that books get into children’s hands and adults hands. Books are so important in regards to education and learning. All the things you get from the printed word and looking at the pictures. To be able to put that into so many hands as possible is incredible to me.
When I look at the books I’m like, these are wonderful beautiful books! They should be in someone’s hands enjoying them and getting something out of it, and maybe turning them into a lifelong reader because someone gave them this incredible book when they were in second grade. It’s that kind of thing. I’m so impressed by Brooklyn Book Bodega and the amount of books we have put together for people every week, it’s incredible.
As a regular volunteer, what do you do on a weekly basis for Brooklyn Book Bodega?
So, Seema has everyone start out stamping. Then I graduated from stamping to helping put orders together. When Seema gets an order in, we’ll go through it and start putting it together. We must have bagged 1000 books last week. Between a bunch of us, we were bagging up book after book after book.
It’s not just pulling randomly off the shelf. We really think about:
Do we have a good mix?
Is it racially diverse?
Is it interest diverse?
Is it gender diverse?
We really think about the communities they’re going to. Who is the predominant group that is going to be getting these books? If it’s predominantly people of color, you don’t want to give a bunch of books about little white princesses, you know! Especially in this day and age when there are other books out there that can act as mirrors and you can see yourself. That says something about what we value.
So it's a lot of running up and down the aisle picking out books. But it’s fun. I get such a kick out of it and seeing the shelves empty and saying, “Wow!” And then just filling them right back up because there are still boxes and boxes of books that have been donated.
How can others get involved with Brooklyn Book Bodega?
We always need donations of gently used children’s books. Or you can do pick up and deliver. Or you can come in and do some stamping and that kind of stuff. There are so many ways to help, and it doesn’t take a lot of time. You meet some great people, and we have these great conversations—about politics, about life. Just getting to know each other, and it’s been fabulous.
Also, the more you talk about Brooklyn Book Bodega with people, the more interested they are. “They’re like, oh really, oh I’ve got books! How can I get more information about this?”
Finally, Brooklyn Book Bodega has such great resources on the website. It’s a real community thing, and the more we can get people involved in community, the better off we’re all going to be. So, just log on and check it out!