Ranger Katherine Freeman
Founded in 2021 at Beaufort High School, DAYLO, or Diversity Awareness Youth Literacy Organization, is a student-led book club and community literacy service group with chapters across South Carolina. DAYLO has been recognized with awards from the American Association of School Librarians, the South Carolina Library Association, and the South Carolina Education Association, as well as being featured in national media.
As an ongoing community service project, the five Beaufort-based DAYLO chapters host free read-aloud events—called the Teddy Bear Picnics—for young children and their families at the Port Royal Farmers Market on the first Saturday of each month, in collaboration with the nonprofit Pat Conroy Literary Center.
In partnership with the National Park Service’s Reconstruction Era National Historical Park, the Saturday, March 1, edition of the Teddy Bear Picnic read-aloud will feature a very special guest reading at 10:00 a.m., with an encore at 11:00 a.m., as the popular Read with a Ranger program returns once.
NPS Park Ranger Katherine Freeman will be reading from the Caldecott Honor-winning children’s picture book Tops & Bottoms by Janet Stevens. Booklist praises this hilarious trickster tail as “all wonderful fun, and the book opens, fittingly, from top to bottom instead of from side to side, making it perfect for story-time sharing.” A corresponding art project will be available for attendees, too.
DAYLO student volunteers will be assisting with Read with a Ranger and also reading other children’s picture books throughout the morning from 9:30 a.m. to noon, at the Farmers Market by the gazebo in Naval Heritage Park, 1615 Ribault Road, Port Royal.
This free event is also part of the Pat Conroy Literary Center’s ninth annual March Forth weekend. Learn more about all of March Forth’s programs and presenters at www.patconroyliterarycenter.org under the Events menu.
To learn more about DAYLO, please visit www.instagram.com/beaufort_daylo. To learn more about the Reconstruction Era National Historical Park, visit www.nps.gov/reer. To learn more about the weekly Port Royal Farmers Market, visit www.portroyalfarmersmarket.com.
