Courtesy of Western Kentucky Athletics
BOWLING GREEN, Ky.–To many a teddy bear is just a toy. However, to WKU softball assistant coach K.C. Boldt, a teddy bear may be a solution to helping students in Bowling Green and Warren County schools become better readers.
Enter Boldt’s program of Big Red’s Readers, a community service initiative of the Lady Topper softball team where elementary students adopt a stuffed animal to become the student’s reading buddy. Trying to find help in getting the program off the ground, Boldt applied for the WKU Sisterhood’s grant, leaving the organization’s annual luncheon with $20,000 after presenting her idea.
“It is such an honor and blessing to have been chosen as a grant recipient this year for what we believe is a great program for our student-athletes and WKU,” said Boldt. “In partnering with the WKU Sisterhood, we now have the opportunity to impact over 2,000 elementary students each year by providing them a tool in which they can improve their reading skills. I am excited to get Big Red’s Readers started, and we are looking forward to impacting the future academic success of children across the Bowling Green and Warren County communities.”
Boldt first got involved with a program similar to Big Red’s Reader as a student-athlete at Valparaiso University. Her head coach, Randy Schneider, started a program with stuffed animals as counseling tools in Gary, Ind.
“With laws prohibiting physical contact with the kids, it was easier for them to tell their story to a stuffed animal than to tell it to an adult, as the kid could think that they might get in trouble for telling something to an adult,” said Boldt. “So the counselor basically just stayed off to the side and let the child talk to the stuffed animal. It was phenomenal idea—it worked out great. Then he thought if it worked for counseling then it might work for reading.”
The Valpo squad continues to run the program, as after 10 years the team has worked with over 3,300 students and 170 classrooms in three counties according to Boldt. A four-year letterwinner and Second-Team All-Horizon League honoree for the Crusaders, Boldt chaired the program as a junior and senior, helping the team with fundraising drives to collect the animals. Once Big Red’s Readers is operating in Bowling Green, she hopes to turn the program over to one of the student-athletes to run.
“Seeing how well it worked out there and seeing all the positive feedback—Indiana test scores, reading comprehension, oral reading frequency, things like that just skyrocketed—I thought it would be a great thing for the team at WKU,” said Boldt. “When I interviewed with (WKU head coach) Amy Tudor, it was in my resume because it is a great resume builder, so she asked me about it and said the idea was great.”
Boldt then worked with the WKU athletics marketing staff as well as Bowling Green Independent Schools Superintendent Joe Tinius to try the initiative in a classroom at Dishman Elementary. After collecting around 30 animals at a softball game, the Lady Toppers went to the classroom and saw great success with the students involved.
It was then obvious that the team would need more classrooms and more stuffed animals. Boldt turned to Dixie Mahurin, academic coordinator in WKU’s Student-Athlete Success Center, who suggested Boldt apply for the WKU Sisterhood grant, an organization Mahurin is an active member.
The WKU Sisterhood is an organization of women advancing university priorities through philanthropic engagement and a collective voice. Any alumna, friend, faculty or staff member of WKU is invited to join this group of women. Each member commits to a gift of $1,000 per fiscal year. The money is pooled together and collectively the full membership votes on how to award the funds.
After writing a proposal on how Big Red’s Reader would impact the community, WKU and the student-athletes, Boldt was ecstatic to receive an email that she was one of five finalists. The Minnesota native then had to present her program to the organization’s members at an annual luncheon.
“I got nervous at that point because the presentation was your time to actually sell it,” said Boldt. “In my mind, I thought it was a great program—of course I’m biased—but thought it might have a good chance to win the money. There were definitely so many worthy applicants, though. I was just thrilled to be in the final five because it gave us a chance to get Big Red’s Readers out there. That was a good thing—just to make people aware that it is going on. It was a step in the right direction even if we didn’t win money from the grant.”
However, Boldt did receive one of two $20,000 checks given out by the WKU Sisterhood. Boldt sees the money helping the softball team fund the program for at least seven years, changing the lives of numerous Bowling Green and Warren County’s elementary students.
It isn’t the first time that a WKU athletics staff member has received funds from the WKU Sisterhood, as WKU track and field head coach Eric Jenkins helped Eric Logan and Light of Chance, Inc., begin the Get Set Go Wellness Program to help combat childhood obesity weight in Kentucky. The duo earned $20,000 at the WKU Sisterhood luncheon in 2013.
The 2015 WKU softball season is being presented by the United States Marines. This season, the Marines and WKU Athletics are working together to promote the outstanding athletic and academic achievements of our female student-athletes. The Marines are proud to work with and support these future leaders of America.
