Renee Shields has been reading in Princeton schools as a GrandPal since 2015, except for the two years when the program was interrupted by COVID. After many years of practicing law and a few years of teaching elementary school, she returned to be a caregiver for her mother who lived to be over one hundred. “I have loved every minute, and reading to the students helped me through my period of caregiving,” she says.

“I was at one of the schools about to read and pulled my reading glasses out of my purse. I discovered there were no lenses in them. I remarked to the students, ‘Well those were my $2.00 reading glasses but I can still read.’ The next time I came to read my student asked me if I had my $2.00 reading glasses. She remembered what I had said. This reminded me that they remember every word I read or say. It ends up that the lenses had fallen out when I pulled my glasses from my purse. As we were leaving that day another GrandPal discovered them on the floor.”