LINCOLN PARK — Growing up in Lincoln Park, Sydney Steans-Gail was surrounded by books. Her mother read to her every night before bed, which Steans-Gail said is the main reason she learned to read at an early age.
Now a senior at Walter Payton College Prep, 1034 N. Wells St., Sydney is a "book addict." Ask her what types of books she likes, and she'll rattle off a list without hesitation.
Sydney realizes her love of books wasn't an accident. It's the product of years of reading and nurturing from her parents — "hidden advantages" that people sometimes take for granted, she said.
"Looking around at [Walter] Payton, we're thinking we all came out on the right side of this. But there are a lot of people who haven't," Sydney said. "If [kids] aren't given the opportunities early on, it takes longer to catch up," she said.
That's why she teamed up with Mt. Sinai Hospital and literacy organization Turning The Page to launch the project, BASICS, for her independent study course at Walter Payton College Prep.
The goal of the project is to give every new mother at Mt. Sinai Hospital a package of books and literacy materials for a year to improve early childhood literacy on the city's West Side. The hospital serves some of the most "economically challenged" residents in Illinois, with 50 percent of paying patients using Medicaid, according to the hospital's website.
Chicago has one of the lowest literacy rates in the country at 53 percent. Only 27 percent of Chicago Public Schools' fourth-graders are proficient in reading, according to a 2015 Tribune report.
As of Monday afternoon, Sydney's online fundraising campaign had raised nearly $14,000 toward its $30,000 goal.
"There are all these really powerful statistics about how literacy correlates to success later in life," Sydney said. "There are some great schools and great teachers [on the West Side], but it's hard to make up the gap that's lost in the early years of life. That's what my project is hoping to target."
Should Sydney and her partners meet their fundraising goal, they will be able to produce about 2,500 packages, which is approximately how many babies are born at Mt. Sinai each year. The package will include baby board books, pamphlets on how to register for a library card and find reduced cost books and other information on literacy.
But she said they will produce packages whether they meet the goal or not. With almost half the amount of money raised, Sydney and her partners can produce half the amount of packages.
For Sydney, the project is an opportunity to make a difference outside of her "bubble."
"There's a bubble in Lincoln Park. You get out of it a little at [Walter] Payton because there's so much diversity here and kids from every ZIP code. But you get a lot of the best kids from every ZIP code so it still feels like a bit of a bubble," she said.
"I've always been interested in trying to get out of that bubble."
Sydney hasn't decided where she's going off to college next year. She recently was accepted by Yale University, but is still waiting to hear back from a few other schools.
And she isn't sure what she wants to study, though she's interested in early childhood education and psychology.
One thing is for certain, though: She'd like to continue working on the BASICS project after she graduates.
"It's a dream," Sydney said of the project. "It's happened really fast. It's also really daunting because I'm only halfway there. There's so much left to do."
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