Many people in Leelanau County are engaged in volunteer activities, but Kara Gregory of Suttons Bay started a nonprofi t organization that stretches beyond Leelanau County and now reaches most of northern Michigan.
Gregory created PoWeR! — which stands for Play, Write, and Read! — in March 2016. The organization has offices in Suttons Bay but has partners and volunteers across the Lower Peninsula as far away as Wayne and Washtenaw counties in southeast Michigan.
PoWeR!’s purpose is to not simply provide books to young readers but develop their cognitive and communication skills. Although she’s modest about her role in the organization — describing herself as “just a volunteer” — PoWeR’s unique approach is heavily informed by Gregory’s background in education.
“Everything I’ve done over my whole entire life is in this project,” Gregory said. “I’ve taught children from birth, and my oldest student at Michigan State was 65 (years old). I taught preschool, I worked with infants and toddlers. I taught in three different school districts, mostly kindergarten through first grade.”
After working in primary education, Gregory went to Michigan State University in Lansing and earned a doctorate in family and child ecology, which focuses on the environmental factors in childhood growth and development. She taught courses on the subject and published research, and her academic background informed her vision for PoWeR!
“I did research on block play, I did research on writing and reading, and I helped to write a couple textbooks on social/emotional development. So, everything in this project is a culmination of my whole professional career,” Gregory said.
Gregory said that she got the idea to start PoWeR! after volunteering with the Salvation Army and delivering Christmas dinners. In addition to providing warm meals to families, Gregory took extra steps to decorate their homes to help the children “feel special and important.”
Making children feel like “important, valued readers” is part of what sets apart PoWeR! from other book-gifting programs, Gregory says. Since the organization was founded eight years ago, their main program has been giving book bags to children and their families.
Gregory says that they offer a range of new books at participating sites and encourage families to let children stuff their bags with titles that they picked out themselves. PoWeR! volunteers also painstakingly insert stickers on each individual book, where children can sign their names after receiving them.
By letting young readers choose their own books to keep and read at home and put their names in them, Gregory says, PoWeR! and their partners teach children to value literacy and set them up for long-term success.
“It’s not just about a book. It’s about the interaction that happens. When you sit with a book with a parent, a caregiver, or sibling, there is language that happens. There is giggling that happens. There’s talk that happens. There is so much dialogue and interaction that has nothing to do with the story book,” Gregory says.
“What we really want to do is increase their language (and) help them feel good about themselves. Because if we do that, we set them up for life,” Gregory continued.
PoWeR! book bags not only contain books, but journals, writing materials, finger puppets, stress-balls, and educational materials that help guide families in promoting childhood development. Gregory also hopes to include play blocks in the bags soon, since her research testified to their effectiveness.
Gregory says that people who want to volunteer should visit PoWeR!’s website at powerbookbags. org. Volunteer opportunities include delivering books to participating sites, sewing book bags, and filling the book bags. Although the organization prefers to purchase new books for their programs, they also accept used book donations outside their Suttons Bay office at 101 Dame St., Unit 5.
Since 2016, PoWeR! has expanded their services to 25 of the 68 counties in Michigan’s Lower Peninsula, and they will expand to a 26th — Alpena County — in August. According to their website, they have 116 community partners, including schools, preschools, Early Head Start programs, health departments, Women’s Resource Centers, and libraries.
Gregory was recognized by the National Writers Series in 2022, receiving a Bill Montgomery Literacy Service Award for PoWeR!’s work in promoting youth literacy.
