Today was Riders are Readers day at the VCRS Recycling Center. Deb Moore and her posse of 8 children rode in on their horses at 2:30 p.m. Deb had parked her trailer at the recycling center at 12:30 p.m., got a shuttle back to where the horses were, and with her gang, rode to the VCRS parking lot.

I did not see them come in. I was downstairs, sorting books. They came in and Pete talked with the children and their parents about the fact that recycling will slow the rate at which the adjacent landfill will fill. Its boundaries are such that in time, the trails will become a part of the landfill site. Pete then showed them a map and had them identify area trails. The kids got to see, in map form, what is going on.

Deb and her posse check out the books

Then I stepped in and talked about the book project. I showed them the sorting area, via the upstairs window, and then led them down to the bookstore, where I’d laid out four boxes of horse books. The kids took the books and made a donation to the recycling center.

This was momentous because it was recycling based education at its best. Deb knows best – the kids are the future. They’ll be riding the trails long after the rest of us are gone. And this was momentous because it was literacy-based education at its best. In the next few days, these kids will be reading the books they selected today – and what they read will shape their values and broaden their world views.

What transpired today was an outcome of several of us getting the Bright Lights Book Project going. Who would have thunk it, that several months ago, when I began digging into the pile, that this would have happened?

I would like to think that this is just the beginning, and that other, equally momentous events are going to occur. And why not? All it takes is a bit of get up and go in order to get people getting up and going.

There was one individual, a teenager, she was a serious reader – I took her into the sorting area, and she went through the books in search of readings in the fantasy genre. I was really impressed because she was, much like I was as a child, adept at finding good books to read; however, her interests were more focused. I attempted to hand her a copy of Richard Adam’s Watership Down and she politely declined. Yep, she knew what she was looking for.

Most of the other members of the posse were younger than she was – but you know, today may have been the day in which some of these kids, with book in hand, may have become readers.

Now looking at the photos that Pete took, photos that are well after the fact, I see this as a distinct possibility.

This day, it made all my hard work (as well as the hard work of others) seem well worth it.

Next: 40. 1/9/20: Ummmmmm