At the Library Station, the four children eagerly updated volunteer Kay Beall on all that they were learning at school.
They surrounded Beall, talking about classes they liked, friends they were making, clubs they were joining, extra help they were receiving and, importantly, the books they had been reading.
Their mother, standing nearby, was beaming.
The ordinariness of the exchange would have been lost on strangers within earshot. But, for the four, the volume of progress they d made at school in less than 15 months proved anything but ordinary. She has done a lot for my kids, said Becky Tartenaar, mother of the four children. She has played a huge part in all our lives. She is part of our family.