Gregory Freeman: Woman's Dedication To Reading Got Her Through Hard Times And Has Aided Thousands Of Children, StL P-D 11/12/2000

Headline: WOMAN'S DEDICATION TO READING GOT HER THROUGH HARD TIMES AND HAS AIDED THOUSANDS OF CHILDREN
Reporter: By Gregory Freeman

Publication: ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH
Last Printed: Sun., Nov. 12, 2000
Section: METRO, Page: F3, Edition: FIVE STAR LIFT

Fundamentally sound
   As a youngster growing up in Germany right after World War II, Gisela Zastrow loved books.
   They enabled her to escape from the rubble and devastation that the war had caused, a war that robbed her of her home and her father.
   Twice a week, she'd visit the American Memorial Library in Berlin, set up by the United States after the war. "Books took me out of all the horrors we saw around us, " she said. Zastrow lived with her mother, grandmother and younger sister, all voracious readers. "In my home, reading was like eating, " she said.

Fast forward to 1970. Zastrow's husband, Klaus, landed a job in this area. They thought they would be here for a short time. But St. Louis grew on them, and they stayed.
Gisela began volunteering at her children's school. But as the youngsters got older - to the age when children get embarrassed about their parents - they asked her to quit volunteering. Zastrow left the school - but continued volunteering.

In 1978, a friend invited her to volunteer with the Reading is Fundamental program. RIF is the nation's largest children's and family literacy organization. Volunteers read to children and try to interest them in books.
"I thought they wouldn't want me because of my German accent, " she said. She was wrong. Her first session was reading to a group of "hostile" students. "I thought they might protest because of my accent, " she said. Instead, the youngsters loved her and applauded when she finished.
After a couple of years, she joined the St. Louis board of RIF.

In 1981, the board was approached by the principal of Griscom School, a school in the St. Louis Juvenile Detention Center serving boys and girls between 10 and 16. He wondered if the board could start a reading program at the school.
Zastrow was willing to do it, and recruited volunteers from her circle of friends and from church groups. Zastrow found the center depressing when she first saw it. She had seen the St. Louis County Juvenile Detention Center, and found the city's center much more jail-like. "It gave me the creeps, " she said. "I cried all the way home." (The city's center has greatly improved since those days, she says.)
When Zastrow began the program, some detention center officials weren't thrilled about it. But she and her volunteers went ahead anyway. It was enormously successful.

In addition to reading to students, volunteers brought a variety of books for the youngsters. After listening to stories for about 30 minutes, students were invited to choose among the books, one per youngster. The book was theirs to keep, at no charge.
"Some of the officials feared that they would vandalize the books or throw them in toilets, " Zastrow said. But that never came to pass.
The youngsters cherished the books and took good care of them. Some of them later told her that they were the first books they had ever read from beginning to end.

Zastrow has found the youngsters to be very responsive to the RIF program. Not only do they take good care of their books, they listen intently when books are read to them.
"Despite some of the awful things that some of them have done, they're really pretty much like your own children, " she said. "In 18 years, I've only thrown one child out."
Considering that RIF programs at Griscom serve some 2,200 young people a year, that's pretty remarkable.

Over the years, some of the youngsters have invited Zastrow to their homes. Some haven't lived in the greatest of neighborhoods.
   Zastrow recalls one incident where she was sitting on the front stoop of a home with several youngsters when she heard the "rat-a-tat-tat" sounds of a machine gun a couple of blocks away.
   "Isn't anyone going to call the police?" she asked, and was surprised when the children all laughed.
   "I went in the house and called 911, " she said. "Then I understood why they laughed. The police never came."

Zastrow, who lives in Town and Country, empathizes with many of the youngsters.
"They're growing up in a war zone, " she said. "I know what it's like to grow up in a war zone; to have no money for food or heat. I know what it means to see someone shot right in front of you."
Still, she says, she marvels that the children maintain a sense of humor. "It's a wonderful gift that they can laugh and laugh at themselves."

Zastrow was recognized earlier this year by the national RIF program, which named her volunteer of the year. As such, she received a one-year appointment to RIF's National Advisory Council.

Trained in Germany as a chemist at her mother's insistence, Zastrow was more interested in becoming a social worker. She's taking courses now to get a degree in social work.
But that doesn't stop her work with children at Griscom, her volunteer recruitment and fundraising for RIF. She is supportive of President Bill Clinton's efforts to bring literacy to prisons, and plans to work with that.
"Reading is important, " Zastrow said. "It can change lives, and I want to do what I can to help people enjoy reading as much as I do."

Daniel Schesch - Webweaver

back