HONESDALE, Pa. — Kids and parents who visit the Wayne County Public Library in Honesdale will recognize Betty Lawson, better known as Ms. Betty. She runs the Children's Room at the library and loves getting kids interested in reading.
During the stay-at-home order, Betty found a new way to connect to them at home through a virtual storytime. What started out as a Sunday nighttime book reading has turned into Betty reading to kids multiple times a week and not just kids in Wayne County.
"My majority of my audience is here in Pennsylvania and Wayne County, but I also can check afterwards, and I see that people from Europe are watching, someone from Egypt is watching, Australia, all over, so that's really exciting," said Lawson.
While the Wayne County Library remains closed, Ms. Betty wanted to keep kids engaged and excited about reading. What she didn't expect was the response she'd get.
"The comments that I get propel me forward during this really hard time. If I'm giving them that back, it's a win-win."
And her passion is how we heard about Ms. Betty. A viewer wrote into our newstip@wnep.com email to tell us how wonderful she is for staying connected to the kids in the community, and we shared that email with Betty.
"And I almost burst into tears when you read it. It was not someone that I knew, and I'm really touched by it. I'm touched that it's making a difference."
Ms. Betty also does several other videos for kids of all ages on the Library's Children's Room Facebook page.