2022-100-Faces-Book - Flipbook - Page 95
Russanne
Reader. Foster parent. Caretaker.
Russanne enrolls each of her foster children in
Imagination Library.
She said one child would come back and forth to their
house and would always have lice when she arrived.
“For the kids to walk away with a library, sometimes
that’s more important than their clothes,” Russanne
says. “And Imagination Library has provided many kids
a wealth of books.”
“The mom was young. She couldn’t deal with those
kinds of issues,” Russanne says. “After many years,
we ended up emancipating the little girl. She was 16,
and the mom just kept making bad choices. And the
daughter had learned a lot and was ready to be out
from under her mom. Many stories like that … in fact,
that little girl is now 23 and married, has a house and a
little girl that we get to sort of be grandparents for.”
Children who are signed up for Imagination Library of
Middle Tennessee—in partnership with United Way,
the Governor’s Early Literacy Foundation and the
Dollywood Foundation—receive one book delivered
monthly to their home at no cost to families.
Ninety percent of physical brain development occurs
in the first three years of life, when a baby forms more
than one million new neural connections per second.
Those early years are a critical window of opportunity
for learning words and language. Children develop
a special bond with their caregivers when they read
together, and it establishes an important foundation
for future learning. When Russanne, a social worker,
was taking a course learning to teach English as
a Second Language, and her teacher mentioned
Imagination Library, she knew it was important for the
children she fostered—an opportunity to develop a love
of reading they otherwise might not have received.
“I’ve gotten a lot of children signed up,” she says.
“It’s just incredible that for five years children can get
books every month.”
Russanne and her husband have been fostering
children for more than 20 years, while raising a son
and daughter. They’ve had children in their home for as
long as three and a half years to as short as overnight.
“That has been the most rewarding thing I have ever
done—that our family has ever done. We are constantly
learning how to better work the system and provide for
these children. There are great lessons for us.”
Now that their children are grown, Russanne and her
husband have started to mainly foster infants.
“I don’t sleep that well anyway, so I might as well be
up feeding a baby,” she says. “Early on, my kids would
help. We all pitched in, and my husband would get
up if it was his turn. I’ve enjoyed having the infants
around. Sometimes you’ll have some issues that are
unsolvable and there will be a lot of crying, but you just
take them outside and walk them. You just do what
you have to do.”
She says they’ll get a call in the night that a baby has
been born and the family is unable to care for them.
They’ll give the babies a couple days in the hospital to
make sure they’re OK, which gives Russanne and her
husband time to prepare. They’ll get out the bassinet,
clean bottles, wash blankets—and sign the child up for
books. Before COVID, Russanne would read to children
in daycares through United Way’s Read, Baby Read!
program and would volunteer at fairs to get kids
signed up.
“I’ve used Imagination Library so often, I felt like I
needed to help them in some way. It’s a rewarding and
spiritual process for me to sit and read,” she says. “The
enthusiasm they show and the hunger for words and
books—I have just found to be fascinating. For them
to use their imagination to venture into worlds they
have not experienced but can envision through books—
having that book, that can be a security blanket.”
Imagination Library of Middle Tennessee
