CLEVELAND — "A boss lady is somebody who boldly chooses her own direction. She gets stuff done, she often strays from the conventional path and blazes her own trail. She often works towards a higher purpose outside of her own personal success." - Maggie Sullivan, author of "Boss Ladies of CLE"
Margaret Bernstein is many things – a mom, a daughter, a reader, a journalist, an author, an advocate, a literacy activist. A featured boss lady. She’s also the Director of Advocacy and Community Initiatives at WKYC Studios.
"I had been a newspaper reporter for many many years and I think it's fair to say that people get really excited to be on television. That has been my superpower and I use it for good," said Bernstein.
Beyond shedding light on worthy causes here at 3News, anyone who knows Margaret knows how much she cares about literacy.
"I just want every kid to grow up understanding that reading is the key to success. If you are a good reader- a competent reader- then that opens the door for you to be successful in school which then opens the door for you to be successful in your career - and have a meaningful career," Bernstein told 3News' Sara Shookman.
As the daughter of two devoted parents, Margaret has loved books since she was little. Her mom, Alice Bernstein, was a teacher in the Los Angeles Unified School District.
"I actually keep [my mom's work ID] right here on my lampshade," Bernstein said. "My mom was an incredible achiever held back by the barriers that affected African-American women in the 50s 60s and 70s. She achieved as far as she could given those barriers. I get to go so much farther and that's a beautiful thing and I do it all as a tribute to her."
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While Margaret was writing for the Cleveland Plain Dealer, she found another love: Little Free Libraries - book-sharing boxes that provide 24/7 access to books (and encouraging a love of reading) in areas where books are scarce.
"Little Free Libraries to me are just an opportunity for every street every block to get involved in promoting literacy and they're so enchanting for little kids.
After discovering her first Little Free Library outside of a Cleveland Public School, Margaret says she was excited to see kids happily borrowing books. Naturally, she started planting them everywhere she could -- outside schools, and in so-called book deserts far from local libraries.
The boxes have popped up everywhere - more than 100 of them in the city of Cleveland alone and 100 thousand around the globe. They're now on all 7 continents.
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Then Margaret started writing children's books to fill them.
"I just heard this little voice telling me, write a book that a child would love for their dad to read with them and that the child would actually beg for the dad to read with them," Bernstein said.
Her first book "All in a Dad's Day" was published in 2012.
"Inside there's actually a plea to dads - [it says] dads, you can do something right now to help your child succeed in school, read to them. And so...I use every inch of available space in this book to either tell the story or explain to that's why it's so important."
Her three books now encourage reading in the home, creating change at the ground level. It's that kind of change Margaret says is so important.
"If you can create an identity in a neighborhood and a desire to use assets to fix its problems then we'll get somewhere... empower the people who live there and let them work with these partners. So it ties back to what we were saying about philanthropy."
That's another of Margaret's passions - working with community stakeholders. She joined the board of The Gund Foundation last year.
"In light of everything that happened with the social justice protests, the death of George Floyd over the summer, I saw The Gund Foundation really take a leading role in just recognizing that institutional racism has had its place in the non-profit sector too and trying to weed it out very deliberately," she explained.
Margaret shared the following quote with our partner Maggie Sullivan in "Boss Ladies of CLE" -
"As a journalist, you have to do more than write about people you have to look at where the failings were and see if you can help solve them."
"That was a turning point for me," Bernstein explained. "It's what we have to do what is our talent what can we use to better our community and then we need to use it."
To learn more about Margaret's mission, and to purchase her books, visit MargaretBernstein.org.
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