For the past two decades, Officer Matt Fletcher of the Naperville Police Department has partnered with the Naperville Public Library for their fall story time series, reading books to children and often teaching them about safety in the process.
The start of story time
What began in 2003 as a call from the downtown Naperville Nichols Library to the police department about commuters taking up parking spaces from patrons turned into a partnership that would be one for the books.
“We worked hard with the library and our parking enforcement and put correct signage up,” said Officer Fletcher. “After about six months, we had it under control and I asked the library folks, “Do you need anything else?” and they said ‘Actually, we need somebody to do a story time. Would you be interested?’ and I said, ‘Sure, I’ll do anything.'”
Impact over the years on Naperville youth
And the rest as they say is history. Over the years, Fletcher has reached thousands of kids, and he says some are now even coming back as adults with children of their own.
“I really enjoy it, have a lot of fun with it. I’ve always worked with kids and youth in my police career,” said Officer Fletcher.
His career is now approaching 30 years and many times he would bring some of his police pals along for story time and even treat families to an up-close look at a squad car afterward.
“A lot of our interactions unfortunately this day and age aren’t positive. We see people when they’re having a bad situation,” said Officer Fletcher. “This is nice to kind of have a positive interaction with folks and I think they so appreciate it.”
“I think it’s really neat that they have the ability to do for the community, just to show the kids that police officers can be helpful and friendly,” said Cory McHale, who brought her two kids along.
Office Fletcher awarded for his service
The Naperville Police Department honored Fletcher with a Meritorious Service Award for Officer Fletcher for his commitment to this story time program, a tradition he plans to continue until he retires.
His next storytime reading will be on October 6 at the 95th Street Library, followed by October 20 at the Nichols Library, both at 10am.
If you have a story idea, we want to hear from you!
