Maryville Housing Authority marks end of first summer reading program

An agency that provides Blount Countians with affordable homes used the summer break to help keep the children it houses eating and reading.

Maryville Housing Authority kicked off its inaugural summer reading program June 3. The program, designed for children in kindergarten through eighth grade, is meant both to offer a service to kids and to help build community among neighbors. It operates two days per week, on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and sits alongside the housing authority’s summer lunch program.

The reading program — which runs until Friday, June 28 — sees kids gather around tables in housing authority offices to work, read and listen to other readers. Participants are provided with both notebooks and reading materials. The kids are given a list of books to read, hot meals and a prize for finishing: $100 gift cards for back-to-school shopping.

The program arose from one specific idea about four months ago, MHA Executive Director Julie Sharpe said in a recent interview: “Let’s keep our kids engaged in the summer.”

She and other MHA staff reached out to parents through a community newsletter and through social media and waited as they registered their children. There are about 20 kids in the reading program this year, though Sharpe said she hoped to increase that number going forward. Between 35 and 40 kids participate in the housing authority’s summer lunch program, of about 140 total MHA residents between five and 13 years old.

Those in the program read 10 books over its duration. Titles include “Diary of a Wimpy Kid” by Jeff Kinney, “Llama Llama Red Pajama” by Anna Dewdney and “Night of the Howling Dog,” by Graham Salisbury.

Keeping kids’ attention wasn’t always easy at first, Sharpe acknowledged. She said that early on in the program, a boy fell asleep while finishing some homework. “I thought, ‘I’ve got to step my game up,’” she said. To make things more exciting, she thought up games that kids could play that involved both wildlife and site words.

“It’s been rewarding to be creative with the kids and adapt to how they learn,” she added.

Partnerships, like adaptability, were also important to the program. MHA staff worked with Deb Skyler, director of Maryville City Schools’ Family Resource Center, to implement it. Other supporters include SmartBank, which offered a donation, the Blount County Community Action Agency, which helped provide meals for the program and 180 Church in Maryville. “We’ve never done anything like this before, and the donations made a huge difference,” Sharpe said.