Photo by Tara Massouleh.
Ammie Akin is the executive director of Better Basics, a children’s literacy agency based in Birmingham.
After serving Birmingham for 23 years, Better Basics has finally joined the downtown community. The children’s literacy agency made the move from West Homewood to a location right outside of Regions Field and Railroad Park on Second Avenue South in July.
“We’ve felt a part of the community downtown for 23 years, but this is the first time we’ve been located near the kids we serve,” said Executive Director Ammie Akin. “This is the first time we’ve been physically present in the city, and that’s what we’ve always wanted.”
Better Basics serves almost 14,000 students from pre-K to eighth grade in 28 Birmingham city schools, including all Birmingham city elementary schools.
In addition to schools, its programs are offered at Birmingham city YMCAs and the Norwood Resource Center. Though the agency is based in central Alabama, it also serves parts of Jefferson, Talladega, Clay and Hale counties, as well as Fairfield and Midfield, reaching almost 26,000 students each year.
Better Basics is run through nine different intervention and enrichment programs meant to help struggling readers and instill a lifelong love for reading in students. Part of the enrichment programming involves bringing fine arts and other non-reading opportunities into schools.
“It’s basically when a field trip comes to the school,” Akin said.
So far, Better Basics has brought the Harlem GlobeTrotter character education program for a visit, and each spring, Red Mountain Theatre Company presents a play at elementary schools.
The program coordinates more than 1,000 volunteers, who will now attend training in the agency’s new location. The 8,300-square-foot Shannon Waltchak space also will serve as the storage unit for the thousands of books Better Basics collects and purchases to give to students.
Last year, 79,000 books were given to students.
“It’s about the same size as our other space, but it feels a lot bigger because it was designed to be more efficient,” Akin said. “Besides the fact that it’s beautiful, it’s so incredibly functional and meets our needs.”
Now that Better Basics has gotten settled downtown, Akin said they will be able to better serve their students.
“We wanted to move to this location because of the synergy here,” she said. “We’re all about improving the community, and this is where the entire community comes together.”
