United Way Quad Cities CEO publishes first children's book, focused on building confidence
At the top of Rene Gellerman's resume is her role as CEO of United Way Quad Cities. Now that her very first children's book is available for sale, she can add published author to the list.
The Adventures of Kids United: The Glass Bridge is a story about friends who turn adventure into a life lesson about the importance of dreaming big, spreading kindness and working together. Her inspiration, she said, was a Madison Elementary School student in the reading volunteer program.
United Way asks volunteers to meet with one student every week for 30 minutes to read with them. While chatting one day, Gellerman got to know the girl and learned about her life and family.
"It was just a big reminder that sometimes we don't see the challenges that some of these kids are facing," Gellerman said. "She had so much pressure on her by some of the consequences of her family's life, that she didn't seem to understand that she had the power to really define what kind of future she wants, and to make a difference in school. So that was where my inspiration came from."
Gellerman said she faced hardships of her own growing up and could relate to being faced with challenges while being too young to understand hope was just around the corner.
"I decided was that I wasn't going to sit back and be silent about it, and I was going to do what I could to help people that maybe face some of the same challenges that I did," she said. "And I wanted to do something fun and really to show kids that they do have choice to make about how their life ends up, and also that they have opportunity to help other people and using their own unique talents to do that."
Unique talents are a major theme of her book, which follows five friends who find a mysterious bridge while playing by the Mississippi River. Gellerman named each of the characters and their accompanying talents after her own five children, and took inspiration from the Sky Bridge in downtown Davenport for the setting.
"These kids decide to go on an adventure to see where that bridge goes and it ends up at the end of the platform, they find a spaceship that's just hovering there, and the spaceship had some mechanical issues, and so the kids offered to help," she said.
Once on the spaceship, the children help repair it and meet one of its leaders, Mary Marvelous, who tells them they are now part of the Kids United group that goes around the world looking for opportunities to make a difference.
"Now that these kids have been there, they have become Kids United so they come back to Earth and they put their talents into practice and start helping their community," Gellerman said.
The book's purpose, she said, is two-fold. Building confidence is one theme. The second raising awareness for reading proficiency and literacy across the Quad-Cities. All proceeds from the book will go toward funding United Way literacy programs in the region.
"There's so many challenges in the world and in our community, but literacy is solvable," she said. "it just is going to require an all hands on deck kind of approach."
Gellerman said she hopes her book brings awareness to the issue and helps people understand the challenge kids in the Quad-Cities face. About 45% of third-grade students in the Quad-Cities are not reading proficiently, she said, which can start a cycle of challenges that last a lifetime.
Every child has the ability to change their own trajectory and make their own path, she said. Some of them just might need a reminder.
"Sometimes ... kids don't know that they have potential, until someone tells them that they have potential," she said. "And so that's the whole spirit of the book."
The Adventures of Kids United: The Glass Bridge is available for purchase through Amazon and Barnes and Noble.
