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 VOYA Winner - Lucy Her Many Horses
My name is Lucy Her Many Horses. Professionally, I am known as pediatrician, Dr. Lucy Reifel. I am an enrolled member of the Rosebud Sioux Tribe and live on the Rosebud Reservation in south-central South Dakota, statistically one of the poorest areas in the nation. I am married to Randy Her Many Horses. We have both always enjoyed reading, so it was very natural for us to read to our seven kids several times a day. For our family, it was not a problem that there were NO libraries and NO bookstores in our area. We bought books through the mail and always stopped at the bookstore when we were in the city. Gradually we built a library of children's books. As our children started attending school, I became aware that few families on the reservation were able to do this. But I did not know what to do to change the situation except to volunteer in the schools to read to and with my kids and their classmates.
But in the early 1990's when I was running well-child clinics and learned about the Reach Out and Read program. I immediately applied and our program, Wakanyeja Yawapi ROR, was accepted. I started giving out age appropriate books to infants and children and literacy information to parents at each well child visit. Across the Reservation, people started learning about my interest in literacy.
Then, in 1997, I was asked to participate on the Rosebud Elementary School Reading Committee. Around that time I learned about RIF and suggested that we apply for a 100% locally funded site. Everyone agreed. We raised money with bake sales and supper sales and successfully distributed over 1,000 books to students each school year. By the fall of 2000, with RIF and ROR combined, more than 3,500 books were going into the homes of children, age 6 months through 14 years. And parents were learning about the fun and importance of reading and books.
Because of our success, RIF suggested that we apply for federal funding for the entire school district, approximately 2,000 students ages 3-21 years, attending 13 schools throughout Todd County. I was not sure how I would be able to manage the distributions since I still had a full-time job with the Well Child Clinics and WIC. One of my sons was in the TCHS National Honor Society at that time and suggested that they might consider having the RIF Program as their "service project." They agreed and this month the NHS students will be starting their 6th year of taking the RIF Program and books to now 14 sites in the Todd County School District, giving away more than 6,000 books each year.
Unfortunately, our students continue to perform poorly in the No Child Left Behind assessments. Every summer, they go to homes with few opportunities to continue to improve their reading skills. So in 2004, with help from a visiting reading consultant and the 21st Century Afterschool Program, we started the "Reading Across the Rosebud" summer bookmobile. Since then, the "Reading Across the Rosebud" book van has been going all over Todd County. It stops at the Summer Food Program Sites, Senior Centers, Daycare Centers, Summer Rec Program Sites, Summer Schools, the Spotted Tail Crises Center – anywhere there are people who want a book to read. Last year the book van even participated in the annual Rosebud Fair and gave books – not candy – to those watching the parade
The final project that I would like to share with you is called "Tiwahe Wowapi Okahnigapi" (Families Learning Reading and Writing), which we started in 2004, using a Coke grant from RIF. In this program, trained professionals taught parents to take digital photos, turn them into a book on the computer and then print it to take home to read to their children. As an incentive to participate in the bookmaking, parents not only got to take the book they had made home, but they also were able to choose a book for themselves. Because of this program, 230 families now have books at home that they have written themselves.
Now, you would think that with all these literacy projects and books that are going into the homes, that we are seeing an increase in reading and improved reading skills at school. I do not have statistics to prove it, but I do know that there are many individual students and parents who value our programs – they want to take a book home, read a book to their child, or make a book for their child. Literacy will improve here – as long as we continue to support it.
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