Episode Transcript
Speaker 0 00:00:01 Good morning, Fort McMurray, wood, Buffalo, and the rest of the world. You've tuned into the Mac CD morning show. I am your host Elliot Pierre, and we're going to start the show off the same way we start every show off with a moment of gratitude. I know you could be doing a million other things with your time. And the fact that you're choosing to spend it with us truly does mean the world to me
Speaker 1 00:00:19 On that note, Tanner hit him with the intro.
Speaker 2 00:00:22 Oh, she caught me loves you're listening to the next anymore.
Speaker 0 00:00:31 All right. I'm excited about today's episode because we're going to be talking about books and, uh, young children books and I at the table, Tanner will hit you up with, uh, the camera angle there. I've read a number of these books to my child. I'm a little boy Keegan when he was a few years younger and he was a part of this program. So I'm excited to chat about it, spread the word about it. And hopefully a bunch of parents are watching this and they can get these books for their children. So as you guys all know, I do not introduce my guests. I let them do that themselves. So, um, on that note, can you please introduce yourself and tell everybody who you are?
Speaker 1 00:01:08 Thank you for having me. Uh, I'm Julianne north Burke. Um, I moved here 15 years ago in may. Um, I came up with the first time to humor my husband to see this place. That the way the news portrays it is a horrible place and fell in love. So then we moved up, I moved up and, uh, yeah, we're raising two beautiful children here and I just loved the community. Nice. Yes. Yeah.
Speaker 0 00:01:31 Right on. And so you moved up here 15 years ago. Where did you move from?
Speaker 1 00:01:34 Uh, Fredericton new Brunswick. Oh, I liked Fredericton. It's beautiful. It was a hard place to leave. No doubt. The thing that I like about Fredericton
Speaker 0 00:01:43 It's like the, the homes are historical homes. You have like some beautiful Victorian style homes with like the porches in front. I want my parents have a nice one. Do they? It downtown. Beautiful. Yeah. It's beautiful in Fredericton. It
Speaker 1 00:01:57 Sounds kind of crazy. This reminds me a bit of it at the river valley and stuff
Speaker 0 00:02:00 Without the houses. That's right. That's exactly it. Yeah. No, it's so nice. And what I liked about it when I visited, um, cause I'd been there. I've been there a number of times for recruiting. I used to go there for recruitment drives. Yep. Um, it's got a younger community as well in regards to like, you have like the colleges and the universities, but you also have like a lot of industry that's there as well. So it's a very interesting,
Speaker 1 00:02:22 It's kind of a mix, a lot of neat different things. Yeah. Yeah. My parents have a bookstore there too, which I worked in 20 years before I came out here. So yeah. I've always had a love of reading. Nice.
Speaker 0 00:02:32 Okay. So let's talk about these books though. So tell everybody at home, what's this about what are these, these books here that we were looking at
Speaker 1 00:02:40 Years ago, Dolly Parton wanted to be able to give back to her community and she was trying to figure out like you can't always throw money at a problem. Right. What would be the biggest thing to help her very poor coal mining town that had disappeared. And so, you know, doing the research, getting kids set up for school is one of the best things and reading to them just 15 minutes a day would do that. So she started in her program. Um, she funds all the kids around that area in Tennessee and then everybody else wanted to do. And she's like, well, I can't afford everybody. So they came up with this system that all you have to do is pay for book and mailing and then we just promote it. And now currently the Dollywood foundation, they send over 2 million books a month to five different countries.
Speaker 1 00:03:16 Yes. Oh, that's crazy. So when we heard about this, um, I was pregnant with my first child and it just clicked to me cause I was like, I worked in a bookstore for 20 years and I used to see people come in with, from the library, with their bags of books and they'd get treats and those who read a lot. And then I'd see in them, in the paper, they were the ones getting the scholarships, headed the sports teams and everything else. I'm like, there's something to this. Like the families that read, seem to the kids seem to have a lot of success reading to your child. They get a larger vocabulary able to express their emotions. Um, good as self-esteem and then you develop a really good caregiver, uh, child bond that's right. Which helps reduce a stress and also helps them to be able to learn better. That's right. So made sense. Um, I was at the rotary club before Fort McMurry and there was about 20 of us and we worked hard to bring it to the program here. And so it started in the rural area in 2010 and then in the community here in 2012. Okay. Oh yeah.
Speaker 0 00:04:12 So, but it's not going through rotary anymore.
Speaker 1 00:04:14 No, we just, in March we started our own imagination library, wood, Buffalo foundation. And just so we can focus on this and uh, yeah. So, um, we, we just look after this, promoting it and making sure there's enough funding. It's free to all families. Each child gets a free age, appropriate book, as you can see from the books there. The first one everyone gets as the little engine that could. Right. So our last one is looking at kindergarten here I come. And in between, they're always changing and then they're age appropriate. So they grow with the child and they get mailed. Well, it used to be to their door, but to their mailbox. Yeah. Yeah. So you'd have a potential up to 60 books if you could get there from birth to two turning five and uh, yeah. And kids loved books and you read to them and that's how they learn is a repetition of reading it over for the 50th time. That's right. Yup. We'd be grudged at some times, but that's how the kids learned. That's
Speaker 0 00:05:03 It? That's right. I've all 60. Awesome. Yeah. My, a young child Keegan. We, we started from day one, got him the books. Um, he loves, he loves it. Yeah. It's uh, it was kinda crazy to me, honestly. Um, when I grew up, like my parents read to me every night, it was just, I was just part of like the routine. And so when I had my child, like we did the exact same thing we read to him every night and his vocabulary grew very quickly. He learned to talk very fast, um, a little bit too fast for my liking, to be honest with you. But, um, parents, some parents would say like, oh my gosh, you must read to your child every night. And I was kind of flabbergasted. I was like,
Speaker 1 00:05:43 Yeah, if I thought were
Speaker 0 00:05:46 What'd you were supposed to do. But like you said, not everybody has access to the books and books aren't cheap by any stretch of the imagination. Um, so yeah, a program like is phenomenal. Yeah. Phenomenal.
Speaker 1 00:06:00 Well, we did the town, I did a town hall meeting with a lot of stakeholders in the community and there was a multiple reasons that they're like, yes, if you can bring this program here of benefit, like we're a very fast paced town, as you know. Um, so, you know, like to get to different things and do all that, it's hard this way. It comes to the house. The kids are like, Hey, I got mailed today. My book. So that was one of the big ones. A lot of people appear. Don't always necessarily value education. They came because their industry died and they had to move. And so this way, like at least if it's here, the kids sort of pushed, like read to me and then they will do better in school. We have a lot of people here where we're most diverse community, uh, per capita, outside of Toronto, English is not always the first language at home. So this is another thing that helps. Right. And, uh, and especially for rural areas, it's really hard to, to deliver a lot of programs into the rural, or we go from Fort chip actually for its Fitzgerald all the way down to Conklin. That's all, very few places are able to do that. And it's all done by GFM postal code. That's amazing. Yeah. So in
Speaker 0 00:06:58 Regards to we know what the program is. You can get a book, it, the kids love it. I like, I can tell you Keegan, when he got his little package in the mail, he loved it. Um, but obviously like everybody can get involved, but this is not cheap to facilitate. So how can people help with what you're doing may be through volunteering? I know COVID makes that a little bit challenging, but potentially even like, do you guys need money at some points in time? Like,
Speaker 1 00:07:23 Does this work? How can people help you? We do. So currently we had a budget this year for 2,500 kids and the full year, and actually it's, it's quite cheap. The books are $3 and 55 cents mailed to the house. I mean, I don't know how they do it that cheap, I guess it's obviously quantities of scale. Right, right. And, um, and then we just promote it and we work with a lot of different partnerships to kind of make sure that the people who could use these books are getting them, um, two new partnerships that we're working really closely with Athabaska tribal council. They're going to make sure that all their groups that they service are making sure that they're signed up for the books and getting that the other one is working with a multicultural association. They've got three different programs that they work with to, to make sure that a lot of the families are getting them.
Speaker 1 00:08:04 If maybe language may be a barrier or they're newcomers to the community and make sure they get signed up right away for it. Right. Um, we've worked for years with the region, wood, Buffalo, uh, library, regional library. Yep. They've been great partners with us and now they're going to be sending out, uh, you know, graduate letters when the kids graduate. So they say, Hey, the fund doesn't have to stop here. We've got a whole world of books here, like any many titles, and this is where you can come in and get all these different other resources. Okay. Yeah. So that certainly helps with the promotion. So we can do that for relatively cheap. But yeah, our budget for the year is $106,500, which I know it's a lot of money, but it's, you know, 2,500 families getting a book a month for an entire year. That's really, it's low cost for high impact.
Speaker 0 00:08:48 You just took the words out of my mouth. High-impact like, it's one of those things reading in general, like is the corner blocked for everything? If you struggle with reading, you struggle with every subject you have to take, even with math. Cause you got to read those problems, science, language, arts, social. If you're struggling with that foundational block, it makes everything more challenging. Yep.
Speaker 1 00:09:10 Even in operational manual to work equipment or answering else like that reading is the key to life. I mean it's yeah. Yeah. Then obviously the stronger the kids are starting off. Like, you know, you don't want them to be struggling right away. Cause it's almost like they're behind the eight ball. That's right. And I know in the states, I don't like to think this in Canada, but in the states they really check the reading levels of grade three students to see how many prisons they need. Cause the kids are struggling. It's really hard after grade three, for them to get caught up in a, save a lot of intervention. Right. And uh, you know, by junior high high school, these kids are turning to a very different road because they don't want to be there and they're frustrated. And so, you know, if you want a stronger community with, you know, a good workforce and, and really educated minded people, it starts early,
Speaker 0 00:09:54 Your kids read to your kids 15 minutes a day. There you go. So let's uh, stick on the top of the books, but let's put the spotlight on yourself. What kind of books do you like to read?
Speaker 1 00:10:06 Oh, I like the, I run the gamut. Um, but I obviously, I think my biggest would be historical fiction. I've always been more. So the fact like Diana Gabaldon, uh, Outlander Anna Green Gables was one of my very first little house in the Prairie. I loved a lot of those. Um, but I do biographies. I think textbooks in school were the only ones that I had trouble reading. Yeah. You didn't like those ones. They're boring. Yeah.
Speaker 3 00:10:29 They were awesome. They had all the answers.
Speaker 1 00:10:31 Yes. Well, to get older, they did. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 0 00:10:35 That's funny. They call tenor. Yeah. I, uh, greeting, but I've switched over to audio books. Oh yeah. I like listening I'm because for two reasons, one, it allows me to like run on my treadmill and like actually accomplish something physical, but then listen to what I'm reading. Or like when I'm driving, like down the highway down to Edmonton or Calgary, when you're allowed to, um, it, like, I think driving those long distances is such a waste of time. Like I can get something out of it by like listening to a book and digesting some notes.
Speaker 1 00:11:09 I've been thinking of trying to do some listen to more podcasts too. I I've had trouble in the past with audio books because I think I'm doing something else in my mind. And then I'm like, what the heck happened? What happened? Right. Oh yeah. Yeah. I don't know what that says about my brain.
Speaker 0 00:11:25 Yeah. My voice is boring. Like I like to hear other, like other people narrate the book, especially with some of like the biographies. Like we have, uh, Matt McConaughey's, uh, autobiography up there and to have him read the book in his own words, it like brings it alive a little bit more instead of just my voice listening to it. But uh, what I've been trying to do, um, because like monkey, see monkey does, um, like your children just copy what you do. Me just having my headphones in and like listening. Isn't really showcasing Keegan. That's my little boy what I'm doing. Yeah. I tell him I listened to a book, but he's like, yeah. Okay. So what I've been trying to do is like actually get back into the habit of picking up like a book and having him see me read it. That
Speaker 1 00:12:12 Is a huge thing in modeling that behavior and, and, and showing men reading so many men do not read. And so a lot of little boys grow up in thinking that it's not something you do. And
Speaker 0 00:12:25 No, it's very true. It's very true. So yeah. Yeah. It's a, it's a big thing. But yeah, this program that you do is, is phenomenal. So you worked at a bookstore, family bookstore, still operational.
Speaker 1 00:12:38 It is one of the last one of the last few independents still going strong. What's
Speaker 0 00:12:42 It called? Let's promote demograph, Westminister books. Westminster books in Fredericton.
Speaker 1 00:12:47 New Brunswick. Yup. Okay. In New York street on York street. Okay. Yeah. Good. I think I've actually been to this place. It used to be on king street. They just moved a couple of years ago. I was able to help them move there yeah. Before the pandemic. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. I think
Speaker 0 00:13:03 I've been to this bookstore in a previous life, years and years and years ago, I used to be in human resources. Um, and early in my career, I was actually a recruiter, um, for a company at the time called, um, Eveready, they're called clean harbors now back trucks, water trucks, and so forth. So I'd be on the road for months on end. And so what I would end up doing is going into bookstores and purchasing books. Now my biggest regret of all this is cause I was on the road so much and books are heavy is after I finished reading a book, I would leave it in the hotel. And so hopefully somebody else, like I take, I wouldn't leave it in my room. I'd take it down to the staff and be like, err, yeah, you must have a library or something or you can take it. I don't care. But I've left thousands of dollars of books just scattered. So I hope hopefully paid for it. Hopefully somebody read it and got something out of it. But I have like a little library at home where I keep all my books. And so I'm like, man, I should've kept those books. You like to put the library?
Speaker 1 00:14:04 Yeah, yeah, no, I love looking at bookstores and it's, it's very neat. So many number different, like so many, um, was funny. My uncle started it and they realized they liked big city life. So they moved back to Ontario. And so my parents and another couple bought it and it used to be great small and then it just grew and grew and yeah. And so I ended up working there part-time when I was younger. And then I got to the point where I was assistant manager and did the book buying. So I bought children's mostly the children's books for 10 years or so. Yeah. So I really enjoyed that.
Speaker 0 00:14:39 I think I'm now more never an independent store actually has a shot of making it. Yes. Because even in Edmonton I saw like on Wade avenue, chapters closed down and there's a winners now and where the chapters used to be out. Um, so cause more people are going gravitating to like online. Like I get it. Yep. The way we're moving. Um, but you can't beat this. The interaction with
Speaker 1 00:15:02 People, the big thing with the independent bookstore is a lot of times they're very committed to their store and they can hand sell you a book. They know your tastes, they know what they've got in there where a lot of time the box store, it's just whoever just working a job and they're not really necessarily readers or so that's right.
Speaker 0 00:15:17 Yeah. Yeah. You're seeing, um, not just in the book industry, but a lot of niche that's, what's making it happen now or making it work. Is it in regards to people who are like handcrafting making things who are a part of the community, the community will reach out and support them more so than a box that they can get that product online. So hopefully that hopefully your family bookstore stays open forever. That's cool. I think my parents
Speaker 1 00:15:41 Would like to sell it at some point and retire. That's right. They're still going strong and yeah, it's a, it's a good story. That's so cool. Yeah.
Speaker 0 00:15:49 Okay. Well on that note, we got to throw you over to Tanner. Okay. So I don't know if you've seen the show before, but we have a segment called the Mac city minute, this town or segment. He's going to ask you some questions. Okay. Interrupt with the max a minute.
Speaker 3 00:16:00 All right. Question number one. What was your favorite book you read as a child?
Speaker 1 00:16:07 There's so many, um, goodnight. Moon, I think is one of them though. That's an old classic, probably that stuck with me, which I've read to my children since. Okay. Yep.
Speaker 3 00:16:18 Question number two. What is your favorite part of reading to your children?
Speaker 1 00:16:23 The connection and bond, you know, then they're looking forward to that. Getting ready for bed. And can we read one more? Yeah. That's, that's a nice, nice experience for them to grow up with
Speaker 3 00:16:33 Question number three. What is the most important reason for kids to be into reading?
Speaker 1 00:16:40 Reading is part of your life. It just, the more they do it, the stronger they are at it, the faster they can read. And then not just one less thing. They don't have to worry about. They just can work on the concept after that. So the earlier they can master that, then the more confidence they'll have
Speaker 3 00:16:56 Question number four. What is one book or author that influences your day to day life?
Speaker 1 00:17:04 Oh, all of them. Yeah. I, I can't narrow that down. Actually. I've read, I read a lot of books, so yeah, they all all, do you take a little piece away from all of them? Right. So,
Speaker 3 00:17:16 And your final question, what is your favorite memory from working at your family books?
Speaker 1 00:17:22 Oh, meeting a lot of the different authors coming through and stuff like that. That was pretty neat. Yeah. And those have been your five questions. Oh, thank you. Yeah. We get to meet a lot of different people at breakfast and stuff. So
Speaker 0 00:17:34 Nice. There's one author. I'd be, it'd be so interesting. He's such a quirky guy. Um, bill bright Bryson bill bright. Oh yes. Yes. He writes some amazing books. Yeah. And he's like a traveler. You've probably read water books.
Speaker 1 00:17:51 I'm drawing a blank on the title. Neither
Speaker 0 00:17:53 Here nor there is one. Um, the walk in the woods is, uh, like I think is most famous one. That's the Appalachian trail book. Isn't it? Yes. Yeah. It, it got, uh, adapted into a movie with, um, uh, Ron and I forget the actor's name. I'm bad with people's names, but yeah. Yeah. I got made into a movie, his books and he's an older gentlemen. And so you wouldn't think about him being like so adventurous, but he, his books, like he paint. That's the one thing about books. They just paint such a beautiful picture. Yes. And uh, like I love to digest content. Like I'm a big visual learner. Um, but before I see, like if I know there's a book and they've made a movie, you gotta, you gotta look at the book first. You gotta do it because the movie is always going to disappoint you.
Speaker 1 00:18:42 Yeah. Very rarely. Have they, like, have you ever seen a prayer for Owen meaty? No. Or the book is amazing and they did the movie called Simon Birch and the movie does stand alone on its own, but it's not as good. I mean, the book is amazing, but the movie actually is different. A job.
Speaker 3 00:18:56 Yeah. Okay. Why do you have to read the book? If you're just going to be disappointed in the movie afterwards,
Speaker 0 00:19:02 The movie could be really good, but then when you read the book, it's just so
Speaker 1 00:19:06 Much, if you've seen any of the Lord of the rings, there's so much more detail
Speaker 0 00:19:10 You catch by reading the book. Why would
Speaker 3 00:19:12 You want to do that? Why wouldn't you just enjoy both? Why wouldn't you see the movie first? Enjoy it and then read the book and then be done
Speaker 0 00:19:18 Once you go back. Like if, once you know what's happening, if you seen the movie first for me, I'm only speaking for me, everybody home before I get a bunch of hate mail from me. Once I watched the movie, like I already know what's happening in the book and then I'll have the patience to go through it. Because when you invest the time to read a book, you're talking hours, days, weeks, depending on the book, but the Lord of the rings. Oh my goodness. I used like, they are so good. And so I'm a, I'm a baby. I don't like scary things. And the Lord of the rings used to, I read it when I was in my twenties when I was going through college, used to be so scary that I would read it down on my couch. And I was like, yeah, I'm not making it to the bedroom tonight and sleeping on the couch. Like that's how impactful, like some books are. I've been really disappointed with some movies that have been adapted into books.
Speaker 1 00:20:10 Yeah, no, I must've been, I've seen some of the Stephen King movies would not touch the book because they already freaked
Speaker 0 00:20:15 Me out that. Right. So, you know, that book is really gonna, yeah. There was one in particular. It's a good, like I w th the book is so groundbreaking. I'm re I don't know if you've read it, read, ready player one. Oh my goodness. It's, it's a science fiction book, but you could see how very easily that could become our future. And then they turned it into a movie. Um, Steven Spielberg actually made the movie and from a visual aspect, it's, it's beautiful. But it's the first movie from a book that I've seen read that is completely different. Like, it's not even the characters don't even like, it doesn't even, you shouldn't even be able to call it the same thing. Oh, wow. Yeah. It's not disappointing because the book was literally that groundbreaking. So, yeah. Anyways, on that note, we're done 20 minutes flew by
Speaker 1 00:21:08 Game over forever. Wow. So
Speaker 0 00:21:10 Before you leave, though, I want to say, thank you for coming on the show.
Speaker 1 00:21:13 Yeah. Some of the other board members do, that's something I forgot to mention. I wanted to mention about the volunteers. We, uh, we're, we're totally volunteer. We're just all passionate about literacy. So our board is all volunteers and all we do is raise money for books and mailing. That's awesome. So we just, you know, social media can be done fairly cheap and all this other stuff. So we were kind of very tiny budget and just raised money for books. So, uh, yeah, so right now we're actually looking for a social media manager. Someone help us out with Facebook and different things. So, um, we do, we're hoping to do a golf tournament again later, that was a good fundraiser for us. And at some point we'd like to do a storybook breakfast, which a lot of communities will do to raise money. And, you know, you get the, a lot of the book characters there and the kids get to see them and cool. Get their autographs and have a pancake breakfast. That's awesome. Good. Those are things hopefully that will happen in 2022. Sweet. But yeah. So we're always looking for volunteers just to spread the word and help out with some of our projects. Yeah. You just
Speaker 0 00:22:10 Segwayed into what I was going to tell you, shameless plug. This is your time at the end of the
Speaker 1 00:22:12 Episode. So you just did it go, here you go.
Speaker 0 00:22:15 Yeah. So, yeah. Please tell your board members to come back. You come back any way we can help and support and get your message out. We would love to do it. I think it's a crucial endeavor. I know how important it is for children to learn how to read. Cause it's a struggle when you can't. So please, please, please take me up on my offer. Come back as many times as you want. We will do that. Thank you very much for having a cool, all right. On that note form of Murray wood, Buffalo, that is another episode of the Mac city morning show. Thank you very much for tuning in. Hopefully you're having a great day and we'll see you tomorrow.
Speaker 3 00:23:03 Talk about quenching your ugly thirst.
