Along a gritty stretch of South Orange Avenue in Newark, locals recently packed a laundromat – not for the hum of the spin cycles, but for readings by debut authors just old enough to tackle chapter books. 

This is no ordinary wash house. Its walls are covered in bright collegiate pennants, mapping dreams from Spelman to Stanford, all curated by owners Annie Godfrey and her husband Darryl, to help local kids “think beyond where they are,” as she put it. 

That’s also the goal of Bedtime Stories, a program they hosted on a recent Sunday. It’s a group for young readers, many of them students in the city’s South Ward, who meet regularly to share aloud and discuss books. The initiative was founded by former teacher and local fixture Sami Armstrong, with financial backing from the Godfreys.

For a year and a half, kids have logged onto virtual reading sessions three nights a week, drawing up to a dozen participants per call. They also take it offline — gathering at spots from a roller rink to this Smart Sudz in the West Ward, and going on larger adventures including a 40-person bus trip to Washington, D.C.  

Together, they have shared more than 600 books, Armstrong says. 

‘Death or jail’

Outside this oasis, hardships run deep. 

More than 60% of children in Newark live in low-income families. At least 25% of young adults in a stretch of the South Ward are disconnected from school and work, and only about 24% of students at nearby Peshine Avenue elementary school read at grade level. 

Armstrong’s hope is to use mentorship and books to open positive avenues. “I had grown tired of seeing the same repeated cycle of, you know, death or jail,” he explained. “I sat down and said: This is what we’re gonna do.” 

The mission is personal, he says, as a former Peshine kid himself. Through his nonprofit, Changing Paths, he teamed with Annie Godfrey, whose husband is former New Jersey Redevelopment Authority Chief Operating Officer Darryl Godfrey, and fellow former Pop Warner football-dad-turned-outreach-worker Simuel Gordon.  

Many Bedtime Stories kids attend Peshine, where Armstrong greets them with hugs and high-fives. Some are being raised by single parents navigating frequent moves between city wards to cut costs, just as he once did.  

“That’s a different type of feeling for them,” he says, “to have a male figure that believes in them.” 

Hydrants and skates 

His mother, Stacey Taylor-Singleton — who gave birth to him at 14, and went on to work as a Newark Legal Services paralegal for 42 years — fondly recalls summers of children running through open hydrants and lacing roller skates.  

Surging rents and cuts to safety-net benefits, though, have created housing hardship, she says.  

Armstrong, who taught financial literacy at Malcolm X Shabazz High School, called the rental market a “monopoly,” and wages simply don’t keep pace. “This gives them something to do,” said his mother, who joined the Smart Sudz reading event, of local kids. “It keeps them off the street.”

Meeting virtually on Sundays, Tuesdays and Thursdays at 7 p.m. — plus monthly in-person gatherings — Armstrong’s video circle helps children ages 4-12 to build reading fluency and confidence. Anyone is welcome.

Before opening their favorite books, or ones they’ve written themselves, the readers log on early to swap stories and celebrate sports wins. “They can’t wait,” Toinetta Griffin, mom to two Peshine participants, says of the kids. “They start texting each other: ‘Make sure you get on Bedtime Stories at night.'”

The personal impact is clear. Asked how long he’s attended, one boy solemnly remarked that it felt like “back in my days when I was just born.”

Some families notice changes, too. Jessica Martinez of Elizabeth found Bedtime Stories by word of mouth, hoping it would help her daughter, Isabella, build reading confidence. And it did. “She went from reading below grade level to reading on grade level,” the mother said.

Homegrown authors

On a Sunday in late July, amid a crowd of about two dozen supporters, young authors shared their own work.

Cheered on by family, Griffin’s 10-year-old daughter, Sa’Riyah Henderson, read  “The Voice That’s Always There,” a book she helped pen for a Peshine class. Once shy, “now you can’t get her to keep quiet,” her mother said.

Her younger sister took a more practical view, confessing around a purple lollipop: “I like to come here to eat food.”

While some kids rolled up on scooters, others traveled farther: 9-year-old Aden Oni usually joins virtually from Red Bank, but today his mother drove him. “I get it from my mom,” he said of his love of reading, and the books she recommends, like “The Fierce 44: Black Americans Who Shook Up The World.”

Carielle Stephens, age 10, read from “Emily’s Silent Struggle,” about a girl bullied at school, which she co-authored at Peshine. “It has done wonders,” her mother said about her assurance in reading aloud.

The kids also met 6-year-old Brooklyn writer Ava Raelynn for her first reading and signing copies of “Ava Goes Green,” her book about healthful eating.

A relaxed setting like this is part of the magic, her mother said.

Other Newark authors on hand included Allison James-Frison, a former school board co-vice president and author of  “The Book of Allison: The Wounds You Don’t See,” which details her survival of homelessness, abuse and the loss of both parents. With her was her college-student daughter, Rashanna James, who penned the poetry collection “The Black Unicorn: A Daughter from Newark” after losing her biological parents to violent crime.

As a former Bedtime Stories guest reader who once shared Dr. Seuss’  “Oh, the Places You’ll Go!,” Rashanna has seen the program’s benefits firsthand. “It gives children a sense of the importance of reading, and also, it gives the parents some downtime,” her mother, James-Frison, said.

The entire encyclopedia 

Many of these kids come from busy households where parents lack time to read to them at night, says Bedtime Stories partner Simuel Gordon. Growing up in the South Ward’s Belmont Runyon neighborhood, he often skipped school out of self-consciousness over his hand-me-down clothes, he said. Yet he devoured a full set of the Encyclopedia Britannica, later channeling that lifelong love of reading into a Rutgers-partnered program for entrepreneurs.

Annie Godfrey, a proud former member of the library club at West Side High School, says accompanying her mother to clean houses in places like Morris County exposed her to college through conversations with a homeowner. Today, she often buys books for these kids, prioritizing diverse picks with characters of color, including works by Ruby Bridges, Taraji P. Henson and LeBron James.

She and her husband also hosted a free Thanksgiving dinner at the laundromat, inviting Bedtime Stories families to attend and help serve, and provide free weekly washing of school uniforms and naptime blankets for Peshine kids.

The Godfreys sponsored a Bedtime Stories bus trip to the National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington, D.C., last year, with plans to visit the African American Museum in Philadelphia.

“He really wants to see children have opportunities he may or may not have had, and to be exposed to experiences outside their current environments,” Godfrey said of Armstrong.

Those expanding horizons are showing up in unexpected ways.

During a recent virtual vocabulary game, which they use to create a coloring book illustrating all the words they learn, the kids surprised everyone by offering vegetables like bok choy and Brussels sprouts for the letter B. More recently, someone chimed in with radicchio for the letter R, Godfrey says.

It gives them hope. In neighborhoods where the odds are stacked, maybe their shared love of “Bedtime Stories” — and community leaders who care — can turn this corner laundromat into a launchpad.

For information about how you can help, visit ChangingPaths.org.

— Video and photos by Genesis Obando.