The City of Covington’s outdoor child literacy effort has become the target for vandals, the city said in a news release on Tuesday.
The “Read Ready Covington” program is promoted through brightly covered metal signs that feature words for young learners.
They are typically secured to street and telephone poles at the eye level of a child throughout the city, featuring a word, a picture to go with the word, and there is a sign with a word representing each letter of the alphabet.
Five sets of the 26 signs have been mounted, one set each in the Peaselburg, Eastside/Austinburg, Westside/Lewisburg, West Latonia, neighborhoods, and Downtown.
Over the last two years, hundreds of Covington children have “collected” the words on the signs as part of an ongoing word-walk scavenger hunt activity organized by Read Ready Covington.
Slowly, however, vandals and thieves have been destroying or stealing the signs, the city said.
A crew from Covington’s Public Works Department recently replaced eleven of the signs, and “we don’t have any replacement signs left,” said Mary Kay Connolly, the director of Read Ready Covington.
She asked that the community contact her (859.292.2301 or mkconnolly@covingtonky.gov) if anyone sees the signs being tampered with or stolen.
Recently, a homeowner on Rosina Avenue ran off a thief who was using one stolen sign to try to pry another off its pole, the city said.
“It might seem like a small act of destruction, but the victims here are small children,” she said. “The activity is pretty popular. We’ve passed out some 500 of these booklets, and we often see families out for a walk crossing the signs off their lists.”
The booklets, available through Read Ready Covington, feature maps where the signs can be found and include writing and drawing activities related to each sign.
-Staff report
