Coronavirus in rural America (Part LVIX): A feel good (or "feel better") story from the Navajo Nation

Rural San Juan County, Utah, between Bluff and Hovenweep

The Salt Lake City Tribune reported on May 21 under the headline, "‘A source of hope': 1,500 books donated to students in home-isolation on the Navajo Nation."

When students at Montezuma Creek Elementary School opened their latest home delivery of school work and meals from the San Juan School District, they found an additional gift: several donated books that the students were allowed to keep.

Around 1,500 books were shipped to the school, which is located on the Navajo Nation, last month by a Florida-based literacy program called Bess the Book Bus, and teachers selected titles for each of their students based on interest and reading level.

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While the coronavirus pandemic has presented challenges for students across the country after schools were closed and learning moved online, remote parts of the Navajo Nation in San Juan County have been particularly isolated. Phone and internet service is spotty at best in the southeast corner of Utah, and many families lack electricity altogether. 

The story, by  Zak Podmore, quotes Charlene Poyer, a third-grade teacher at Montezuma Creek who helped facilitate the donation: 

It’s one of the best things that has happened to our area, I mean, for somebody to reach out to us and think of the students that we are serving.  These books are a source of hope we are able to share, to tell these kids that we are here and we care.

 Montezuma Creek, population 335, is in San Juan County in the far southeastern corner of the state.  Other coronavirus reporting about the Navajo Nation is here and here.  A few other photos of the area are here.