Sparking the magic: Springfield nonprofit helps with literacy projects

As part of a book club at Matheny-Withrow Elementary School launched by the Springfield nonprofit iMagicNation this past semester, third graders read "Hachiko Waits," the story of a Japanese Akita dog who faithfully showed up to greet his owner daily at a train station, even years after the professor's death, and was immortalized with a bronze statue.

Donna Brown, the founder of iMagicNation, said the exercise was more than reading a book.

An acquaintance of Brown's from Chicago had an Akita dog, a large muscular spitz breed native to Japan, and so Brown arranged for her to bring it to the class.

More: 'My dream as a teacher died.' Springfield teachers continue to express concern over safety

"They asked questions about the dog. We were able to take the story (from the book) and make connections," Brown recalled. "It's not enough to give a kid a book. You have to open it up to them and make it come alive.

"I've seen the magic. I've seen the transformative power (of reading) That's an experience those students will never forget."

Brown has been making reading magic for the last decade.

Now she wants to make her mark by addressing what she calls "a book desert" in Springfield.

The 62-year-old Chicago native, who was honored as the 2024 Distinguished Volunteer Award at the Good as Gold ceremony at the University of Illinois Springfield on April 22, wants to start a literacy and tutoring center on the city's east side.

The organization owns property on the northeast corner of 16th and Spruce streets, acquired through auctions, Brown said.

Brown, who recently retired from her full-time job at Chase Bank, is working to create a summer tutoring program with future neighbor Zion Missionary Baptist Church to give the nonprofit a foothold on the east side.

Brown, a self-professed lover of "all things books and all things words," at one time was in charge of creating volunteer programs, including those where adults helped mentor and tutor kids, for District 186.

In her role of coordinator of volunteers, Brown oversaw the district's summer reading program and instituted Real Men Read, which had some 60 businessmen, politicians and judges as part of its cohort.

After the district eliminated her position in 2013, Brown and a group of other volunteers wanted to stay working with children on literacy projects, so she started iMagicNation and continues to operate it out of her home.

The idea was to spread the magic of reading, Brown said. Too often, schools make reading "punitive, when it really should be presented as a joy," she contested.

With Brown involving people like Bob Bunn of Bunn Capital, Judge Theodis Lewis and Dr. Wesley Robinson-McNeese of the SIU School of Medicine in Real Men Read, a program the district brought back this school year, "I really saw kids changing their perspectives about reading," she said.

Brown was nominated for the Good as Gold award by Calvin B. Allen, who recently retired as the 21st Century coordinator at the Springfield Urban League.

The Urban League brought in iMagicNation to its Camp NKIRU for middle schoolers and high schoolers the last two years.

"(It was) one of the best decisions we made," Allen said. "(iMagicNation's) program is creative, and they have a unique way of engaging youth and getting their buy-in."

Brown said he is committed to making an east-side resource center a reality. While there are plans sketched out for a permanent facility, she isn't averse to a modular unit going on the site for now.

"My passion is for families and children who don't have resources that can help them," she said. "If you don't have the ability to pay for a private tutor, then what?"

Contact Steven Spearie: 217-622-1788; sspearie@sj-r.com; X, twitter.com/@StevenSpearie.

This article originally appeared on State Journal-Register: iMagicNation nonprofit eyeing new home in Springfield