One of Mike Smith’s primary missions while policing North Philadelphia is to engage with the neighborhood in a way that benefits both Temple’s students and faculty as well as the surrounding community.
“It’s super important,” said Smith, deputy chief of Temple University Police Department. “We tell our officers all the time to engage with not only the students but the community for the students as well. To stop by, talk to the kids, and show them what education is all about.”
To further this mission, TUPD donated 3,000 books to Paul L. Dunbar School on Wednesday in anticipation of Read Across America Week, a national celebration focused on promoting the joy of reading among children and organized by the National Education Association. Toys for Tots, a charitable organization that distributes toys, books and other resources to children in need, provided the books for the elementary students before the reading appreciation week starts on Sunday.
Student athletes from Temple’s football and track teams and the Temple University Black Student Athlete Association volunteered at the event, helping to distribute books and engage with the students at Dunbar, on 12th Street near Montgomery Avenue.
Jim Hennigan, TUPD’s captain of patrol, thinks these types of events are crucial because they emphasize the importance of community engagement and forming bonds with local school students.
“We’re excited to foster an environment of reading and learning for the kids, and Temple University Department of Public Safety is here for not only the Temple Community but also North Philadelphia, so this is a good way to give back,” Hennigan said.
Temple student athletes kicked off the event by unloading the donated books from the truck and setting up the school’s auditorium for the books to be displayed. The room buzzed with positivity and energy as officers, teachers and students came together to organize the books for the students.
Smith then read a story to the students called “Diggers Love to Go to School,” a children’s book by Brianna Caplan Sayres that reinforces the importance of learning. Smith also expressed the significance of TUPD and the Temple student athletes’ role in sharing this message since learning is a lifelong endeavor, he said.
Linnea Hunter, an academic teacher leader at Paul L. Dunbar School, stressed the importance of fostering a culture of reading with the youth, even outside the classroom. Hunter prioritizes introducing her students to books with characters that look like them and are written for them.
“Reading is important to me, especially in our younger grades, so I’m always looking for ways that I can get more books into students’ homes to build up their home classroom libraries,” Hunter said.
After the books were set up in the auditorium, kindergarten through fourth grade students made their picks from the selection. The children poured into the space with huge grins on their faces, eager to pick up a new read. The Temple football team also visited classrooms to hand out books to students from fifth to eighth grade after the initial event.
Temple Football head coach K.C Keeler has stressed the importance of his athletes participating in community engagement and building relationships with the youth who look up to them since he began his tenure in December 2024.
These engagement activities also help improve relationships within the team, Keeler said.
“I think our players understand that there’s a responsibility if you’re gonna play in this football program,” Keeler said. “There is a responsibility, and one of those responsibilities is giving back to this community.”
Members of Temple’s track and field team share this sense of community. Siani Brown-Carr, a member of the track team and member of BSAA, collaborated with Officer of Community Engagement Leroy Wimberly so she and her teammates could gain experience working with the community at an event like the book drive.
“With Temple being such a large part of North Philly, having the teams here demonstrates that the youth possibilities are endless, essentially,” Brown-Carr said. “It shows them that we are all a community, and we will do anything to help the youth.”
Collaboration between Temple and the surrounding community remains one of the utmost importance for some student athletes. Evan Simon, the Owls’ quarterback and a senior adult organizational development major, plans to continue volunteering and helping where he can.
“Every opportunity we get, if it works with our schedule, I will be there,” Simon said.
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