She Magazine

She magazine’s Spirit of the Holidays: Julia Burney-Witherspoon

Cops and Kids Founder Julia Witherspoon reads Goodnight Moon by Margaret Wise Brown and Clement Hurd to, from left, Ayanna Crenshaw, seven, her sister Aryanna, five, and Karl McNeil II, four.

What began as a childhood fascination with reading has turned into a community program that puts books in the hands of youngsters

Published:

By Sara Rae Lancaster

Do you remember the first word you learned to read?

Kenosha resident Julia Burney-Witherspoon does. It changed her life forever.

“I will never forget it,” she said, speaking of the memory thoughtfully as if remembering an old friend.

“From that first word, I was off and running.”

That word — “look” — opened one little girl’s eyes to a world beyond her own poverty. To a world that could be because of books.

Reaching for a dream

As the eldest of 12 children in a poverty-stricken family with alcoholic parents, Burney-Witherspoon hungered for books. Her parents wanted her to succeed in school but they couldn’t afford to pay for lost or damaged books, so the ones that came home from the school library were placed out of reach on top of the refrigerator.

But Burney-Witherspoon wouldn’t be separated from her beloved books.

“I would take my book off the refrigerator and, in the middle of the night, sneak into the basement. I would stand by the window and read by the streetlight,” she said. “I knew I’d have to go to school in the morning, but because the chapters were just so good I kept trying to read just one more without falling asleep or getting caught.”

Her parents never caught her, but her younger siblings discovered her nightly routine and tattled on her.

“My parents hit the roof,” Burney-Witherspoon said, noting that they then resorted to stuffing the books under their mattress.

Still, she kept reading.

“When they were asleep, I’d sneak over to their bed. Every time they would move, I’d inch my hand under the mattress,” she said. “Then, when they’d move again, I’d push my hand under a little more. I did this so many times, and very rarely did I get my book on the first time. To think, I went through all this just to read.”

Hope and prayer

Fast forward to 1997. Burney-Witherspoon, now a Racine police officer, responded to a domestic disturbance. While searching the kitchen, she came across an all-too-familiar scene.

“And there, on the refrigerator, were these library books from school,” she said. “I thought I was back in my house.”

Burney-Witherspoon asked the mother about the books, who said she placed them there so her children wouldn’t “mess with them.”

Burney-Witherspoon made a sad connection.

“If reading is only done in school, and there’s no reading at home to practice comprehension, then this is why the kids are doing so poorly in school. This is why they aren’t graduating,” she said. “I left that raid and I cried. I cried for all the books these kids never read.”

When she stopped crying, she prayed.

“I knew I had to change this. I just kept praying ‘God, they need books, but what can I do?’”

Answering a need

Two weeks later, Burney-Witherspoon responded to a burglary call. She and another officer arrived at a windowless, unmarked warehouse. All she could make out through the shadows were tall stacks throughout the space.

What happened next changed her life’s course.

“The lights came on and there were thousands and thousands of children’s books,” she said. “I didn’t know where I was or where these books came from, so all I said was, ‘Thank you, Lord. These are my books!”

From there, Burney-Witherspoon followed her heart. After checking with the warehouse’s owner, she obtained thousands of books that would have been shredded due to minor printing imperfections. Her plan was to give them to inner-city children.

“I got in my car and drove to the only place I knew that could move that many books — Merchants Moving and Storage Co. right here in Racine,” she said.

Owner Jim Eastman helped her move and store the books until she came up with a plan to distribute them. It was November, close enough to Christmas, so she decided to find a temporary location within the city and hold a book giveaway. She found an empty storefront, which happened to be owned by her former neighbor, Emil Mathis. The local newspaper ran a story about the giveaway, and children responded.

“Those kids came in the snow and the cold,” Burney-Witherspoon recalled. “They came with wagons with one wheel missing, wagons with two wheels missing, pillowcases, old shirts tied together to make a bag. Those kids were just so excited over those books.”

The idea grows

Several fellow officers were there in uniform to help distribute and autograph the books. As Burney-Witherspoon watched the officers interact with the children in a positive way that was sadly unfamiliar to most of the youngsters, she knew she’d spend the rest of her life putting books in the hands of children.

During the next year, while police officers continued to distribute donated books from the trunks of squad cars, Burney-Witherspoon created the Cops ’N Kids literacy program. Thanks to the generosity of the Racine community, the program even had a permanent home. After standing vacant for 28 years, the building that now houses Cops ’N Kids, at 800 Villa St., was donated to Burney-Witherspoon. Several community members helped her renovate the space.

Eventually her story took on national attention when a producer from NBC’s “The Today Show” learned of her efforts. Soon after “The Today Show” segment aired, one of Oprah Winfrey’s producers contacted Burney-Witherspoon, informing her she had been chosen as a recipient of Oprah’s “Use Your Life Award” and its $100,000 prize.

While on “The Oprah Winfrey Show” to accept her award, Burney-Witherspoon spoke of the continued renovations she wanted to do at the Cops ’N Kids center. Her wish list included kid-friendly reading rooms, classrooms, a piano for music classes, and, most importantly, big, comfy furniture on which the youngsters could curl up and read.

The award money didn’t allow her to accomplish everything on her list, but through the sweat equity of many community members she was able to install new walls, floors, doors and windows throughout the two-story building and give it a fresh coat of paint. There wasn’t much inside, but Cops ’N Kids now had a solid home.

In March 2001, Witherspoon received another phone call from “The Oprah Winfrey Show.” They wanted to do an update. While Burney-Witherspoon sat alongside her on stage, Winfrey confessed that this wasn’t an update program after all. Instead, it was a cover-up so the show could send decorators and painters to Racine to bring the rest of Burney-Witherspoon’s vision for the center to life.

The transformation included plush sofas and chairs, colorful murals, a piano, and even a basket of socks for the children to wear while at the center.

The center becomes reality

In June 2001, the Cops ’N Kids Reading Center officially opened its doors. Today, the program continues to put books into the hands of Racine’s underprivileged children. From 4 to 6 p.m. Monday through Friday, Miss Julia, as she is affectionately known, welcomes children age 3 through sixth grade to the center. There, the children can read and borrow books without fear of fines. But it’s more than a library. The children also receive one-on-one tutoring and engage in art, music and writing classes.

The center began through a community effort, and that same volunteer spirit sustains it today. Cops ’N Kids and Merchants Moving and Storage continue to host the Christmas Book Give-Away at which police officers in uniform still distribute and autograph books. And during the week, retired teachers, librarians and community volunteers act as tutors and readers at the center.

Retired Racine Unified School District teacher Margaret Drysdale began volunteering there shortly after it opened. Today, she is the program’s reading and education coordinator.

“When I was teaching, I knew there were children in my classroom who weren’t getting everything they needed academically,” she said. “I thought volunteering might be a way I could fill that gap.”

Much of the center’s curriculum comes from Racine Unified, but it is modified to better fit the children’s needs.

“We try to make the curriculum slightly different so it’s more than just an extension of what they’re doing in the classroom,” Drysdale said. “We’re teaching the same skills but in a way that creates a fun approach to reading.”