Watermark Books & Café is partnering with the Wichita, Kan., Police Department, on a program called "Building Bridges through Books," which was made possible through a grant from the Impact Literacy Initiative of the Wichita Community Foundation. KSNW-TV reported that the program launched yesterday, "and in the next few days, 14,000 Wichitans will receive a card in the mail inviting them to participate in the program and receive several free books directly from the officers' hands."
"Families will receive the card, and they can contact Watermark Books & Cafe to sign up. We will connect the families to the police officers. We have blanketed the city evenly throughout, so that the community officers will work to get the books delivered," said Watermark's Sarah Bagby, adding: "We will have a community gathering several weeks after the drop of the books. We will have it three times a year. We don't want to do it once. We want to create a conversation between the books, the police and the citizens."
"Unfortunately, most of the time, police contact is during a crisis," said Officer Charley Davidson, Wichita Police Department. "This is an opportunity to build bridges through books, for us to build a bridge with our community in connecting through these books and reading these books."