Detroit — Anita Sevier recalled going through the library at Gesu Catholic School three years ago and finding some really old titles.

Really old.

“There were books in there that we were weeding out that said someday we’re going to land on the moon,” Sevier said. “It was time to clean it out.”

Despite its “long history of good reading programs,” Sevier said, years of collected dust and strapped budgets had left the northwest Detroit school’s library in desperate need of an overhaul.



“As a fifth-grade teacher reminded me, kids do judge books by their cover,” said Sevier, a parent of Gesu graduates who also works as community outreach coordinator at the school. “We had some old books that looked old.”

With a little help from Sevier’s children and their friends, high school volunteers and work-study students from nearby University of Detroit Mercy, cleaning out the library was quick work.

“Once, the University of Detroit-Jesuit football team came over in the summer, and we moved the entire library in 40 minutes,” Sevier recalled. “It was great because the coach would tell them exactly what to do after I told him what I wanted. It all got moved. It was fabulous.”

Next on the update list was a computerized, online catalog for the library, new barcodes and an online checkout system, much of which was also accomplished through volunteers and community sources.

With little budget, Sevier turned to a higher source to find a volunteer librarian: Providence.

“Literally, my daughter was getting her hair cut, and she talks to the woman sitting next to her. They chatted, and the woman says she wants to volunteer in Detroit,” Sevier recalled. “She had just retired as a children’s librarian in Troy. My daughter said, ‘I know what you could do to volunteer.’”

But despite such key pieces falling into place, one problem lingered: There was still little to read.

Enter The Book Beat, an independent bookstore in Oak Park owned and operated by Colleen Kammer and her husband, Cary Loren.

A product of Royal Oak Shrine’s schools, Kammer knew firsthand the value of a Catholic education, and as a bookstore owner, she knew the value of a good library, too.

“(Gesu’s) library is a key thing for them,” Kammer said. “When parents look around at schools, when they see they have a library, that is a selling point for the school. A lot of schools don’t have libraries any more. It’s one of the first things to go when you get your funds cut, usually.”



After hearing about Gesu’s project from the school’s librarian, who has since moved on, the bookstore began setting aside books it didn’t need to help stock Gesu's library. Eventually, that lifeline birthed other opportunities, such as sending local children’s authors whose books are sold at the store to speak at Gesu.

For the past two years, The Book Beat has also held a pair of holiday “book-raisers” in which 20 percent of a day’s sales were donated to the school’s library. Sevier said the “book-raisers” have been a “win-win situation” for both the school and store, with more than $1,800 raised during the first event in December 2013 — which also accounted for “way over normal” sales at the bookstore, she said, due in large part to the event’s promotion in the community.

In return for The Book Beat’s generosity, Sevier said Gesu uses the money it raises to buy books from the store to further stock its library.

Kammer said the “book-raisers” are the least they could do to help keep Gesu, one of just four Catholic grade schools left in the city of Detroit, going strong.

“I think it’s important that there are Catholic schools in Detroit, and I do want to shed a light on that,” Kammer said. “Catholics in the suburbs and other parishes — that’s a mission in Detroit, to keep those Catholic schools going and to help them if they can.”

Kammer said it’s important to her that the bookstore serves a “purpose” in the community, and said The Book Beat is willing to extend a helping hand to other Catholic schools, too.

“It’s all about everyone working together, really. All these people we know, I would ask, ‘Can you help with this?’ And all these people want to help,” she said, adding that “book people” know the importance of a school library.

“We’re in our community and trying to serve it and trying to promote books,” Kammer said. “Trying to say that books matter and bringing people together.”

 

The Book Beat

The Book Beat, an independent bookstore in Oak Park, is willing to help local Catholic schools in need stock their libraries. To find out more, call (248) 968-1190 or email [email protected].