Bellingham Police hope initiative helps decrease crime and foster positive relationships
Volunteering to lead a youth literacy campaign for the Bellingham Police Department was an easy choice for Sgt. Kyle Nelson after his wife, while doing some professional development, read research about the links between literacy and incarceration rates.
According to statistics published by Begin to Read, 85% of all juveniles in the juvenile court system and more than 60% of all prison inmates are functionally illiterate, and the Department of Justice has estimated that 70% of inmates in American prisons can’t read above a fourth grade level.
“One of the best ways to combat illiteracy is to start reading at an early age,” Nelson told The Bellingham Herald.
It was that desire to foster reading in young children that prompted Nelson to lead the Bellingham Police Department Literacy Initiative, which will kick off with a free event from 10 a.m. to noon on Saturday, Aug. 27, at Lee Memorial Park outside the Central Library.
Children 5 and younger will receive a free, age-appropriate book, as well as the opportunity to interact with police officers and their patrol vehicles. The event will also include crafts and a chance for officers to read children’s books to participating kids.
The initiative is a collaborative effort between the Bellingham Police Department and the library, according to a city news release on the event, and it is hoped that it will not only foster a desire to read in young children but a positive relationship between participants and officers.
“I just hope families get positive interactions with our officers and we continue to build trust in the community through events like this in addition to the work we do every day,” Nelson said, adding that a large portion of the credit for the initiative should go to Bellingham Public Library Children’s Services staff, which selected and sorted the more than 2,000 books for the program, and the Whatcom Community Foundation, which helped fund it through a Project Neighborly grant.
Books will be available for different age groups and in different languages, according to the release.
Saturday’s event is just the start of the initiative, Nelson said, as some of the 2,000 children’s books will be put in the department’s patrol vehicles so that they can be distributed to children officers encounter during their day-to-day law enforcement duties.
“This is just the event to kick everything off,” Nelson said. “The real heart will continue on an ongoing basis. ... Our ultimate goal is to have an impact on crime prevention through literacy and to start a program that creates positive interactions between police and the community. Any time you get to do that, I think it’s positive. I hope we can make a positive impact on people’s lives.”
