In the spring of 2001 Kathy Calfee was reading the book THE PRAYER OF JABEZ by Bruce Wilkinson. Inspired by the teaching, she prayed the prayer and immediately was inspired with a plan for Sidewalk Stories. It didn’t take much to prepare for this ministry. All she needed was a wagon and some books. So she went to thrift stores and bought enough books to fill the wagon.
In June of that same year Kathy attended a meeting for people interested in helping with Vacation Bible School at a local inner-city church. She shared the plan for Sidewalk Stories and asked if she could try it out during VBS times. Another woman attending the same meeting, Carolyn McBee, was very enthusiastic to help. She also felt that she should be involved in some sort of ministry involving books, and Sidewalk Stories sounded like the thing to do! So, from that time on Kathy and Caroline met once a week throughout the summer and early fall, pulling their books of wagons throughout the neighborhood and reading to all of the children they could find.
How Sidewalk Stories Was Received
Their first day out people in the neighborhood did not know what to think of them. The neighborhood certainly was not afraid of 2 middle aged women huffing and puffing, pulling a wagon full of books up and down the street. They found 11 kids to read to that first day. The children enjoyed the attention and were delighted to be able to select a book to keep. Kathy and Caroline went home tired, but happy that their day was successful.
The following week they returned to the same neighborhood and found 30 children waiting for them! After that second week they knew they would need help to reach all the kids in the area. So they recruited volunteers from their church and put together several teams. Those teams were made up of 3 to 4 people each who volunteered to help once or twice a month. The teams were able to cover the six streets around the VBS church once each week. By the end of the summer the Sidewalk Stories teams were sitting on the front porches of over 40 homes and reading to over 60 children each week. To their surprise they didn't just read to toddlers, but the majority of the children were older kids and even some teens!
At times the teams were able to pray with single mothers or elderly people who were ill. The Sidewalk Stories teams also had many friendly conversations with other people in the neighborhood, and were able to help direct them to the church in their area. The best was that every week the kids would wait for the Sidewalk Stories teams to arrive. And the children would often greet the teams shouting “ It's the Bookmobile” and “ It's the Book Ladies” !
