DAYLO

The Power of Storytelling

story by HEATHER STEINBERGER 
photos by JENNY PHILLIPS AND PAT CONROY LITERARY CENTER

On the first Saturday of each month, a little extra magic sparkles beneath the sprawling live oaks at Naval Heritage Park on Ribaut Road. High school and college students gather at Port Royal Farmers Market to read stories aloud to children of all ages, together with their families.

This free public event is called the Teddy Bear Picnic, and it wouldn’t be possible without a local, student-led, proliteracy book club called DAYLO.

It stands for Diversity Awareness Youth Literary Organization, and it is the brainchild of Beaufort High School graduate Holland Perryman, the nonprofit Pat Conroy Literary Center’s first intern. According to Executive Director Jonathan Haupt, Perryman first experienced a Conroy Center program in 2019.
Held every spring, March Forth commemorates the anniversary of author Pat Conroy’s passing on March 4, 2016, with public explorations of important themes in Conroy’s life, including literacy, social justice, and storytelling.

“Holland was moved by March Forth, and she started looking for ways to be involved in the world of literature,” Haupt recalls.

Perryman, then 14, didn’t find what she was looking for, so she asked Haupt to create an internship at the Conroy Center. He initially resisted the idea, but became impressed by her determination.
Perryman’s internship began in the spring 2019, and two years later, the center added two more interns from BHS: Emily “Millie” Bennett and Alisha Arora. Haupt mentored the three teens as they assisted with programming, developed their communication skills, and learned about literature and arts leadership.

Virtual author visits during the pandemic inspired 16-year-old Perryman to found DAYLO.
“It’s serendipitous that March Forth was again the point of entrance,” Haupt says.

Thanks to the virtual format of March Forth in 2021, Holland was able to meet Anika Noni Rose, the first Black Disney Princess, and Kalynn Bayron, author of “Cinderella Is Dead,” over Zoom. These discussions proved to be transformative.

“Rose told the audience, you have to do the work yourselves,” recalls Claire Bennett, Millie’s mom, who co-mentors DAYLO with Haupt. “That really resonated with Holland. She created DAYLO at BHS over spring break, and Jonathan promised to keep it going.”

“Holland wanted to create something from the ground up, as she had seen me doing at the Conroy Center, but scaled for the needs of students,” Haupt says. “When Holland graduated, Millie took over — perhaps reluctantly at first. But sometimes destiny chooses you, and she stepped up powerfully.”

The intent was to create a book club that would read and discuss literature with diverse themes and perspectives — while also tackling pro-literacy initiatives to improve access to books, build and strengthen connections, and encourage empathy. These initiatives would grow to include the Teddy Bear Picnic, book drives, stocking Little Free Libraries, and supporting the Beaufort Human Library.

As Beaufort Academy’s media center coordinator, mother of three, and lifelong reader herself, Claire Bennett says she felt drawn to DAYLO. The BA chapter organized in early 2022, and Bennett serves as on-campus advisor. (Additional chapters now exist locally at Battery Creek High School, The Complete Student, and the University of South Carolina-Beaufort as well.)

“I love to hear their discussions,” Bennett says. “We try to read three books per semester, which the students choose.”

Recently, DAYLO chapters at BHS, BA, and BCHS joined together to read “The Blood Years” by Elana K. Arnold. This award-winning historical novel tells the story of a young girl’s struggle to survive the Holocaust in Romania, based on the author’s grandmother’s real-life experiences.

“The kids had the opportunity to Zoom with Arnold,” Haupt says. “It was one of the best author conversations I’ve ever seen. They knew the story, they had done the research, and they had questions in mind. They were so excited.”

The students bring that same level of enthusiasm to their public service and advocacy work, seeking to improve literacy and increase access to books. Last fall, DAYLO and several partner organizations conducted a book drive for school libraries and Little Free Libraries around Beaufort.

“We have 23 or 24 Little Free Libraries north of the Broad that we care for, including two DAYLO donated,” Bennett says. “We also send book bundles to school libraries across the county. If people want to donate books to help, Sally Sue Lavigne at the Storybook Shoppe in Bluffton has a curated list of books we need.”

On April 7, DAYLO students supported the fourth Beaufort Human Library, a project that promotes empathy and understanding by allowing the public to “check out” volunteer Human Books who share their personal stories. The students served as facilitators, or rather, Bookmarks, a role created by Alisha Arora through her Conroy Center internship.

Then, of course, there are the Teddy Bear Picnics. Bennett says they are as beloved to the teens as they are to the children who come to listen.

“Seventy-five students came to read stories at the first Teddy Bear Picnic,” she recalls, laughing. “We had more readers than audience members! The kids are very focused on the work.”

“DAYLO leaders tend to be high achievers with world-saving tendencies, much like Pat Conroy,” Haupt says with a smile. “I see in DAYLO students the same ambitions to have a positive impact in the world, and Claire and I get to guide them as Pat guided me and as his teachers guided him.”

The teens are running with it, and new DAYLO chapters are starting in other communities as well. Each chapter has faculty advisors and access to co-mentors Haupt and Bennett, but the students are in charge.
“DAYLO empowers us, as students, to voice our own thoughts and be a vital part of activities to better our communities,” says Mary Ruff, one of several student leaders recently featured in a nationally televised story for Nick News. “With Mrs. Bennett and Mr. Haupt, we also have the benefit of advisors who genuinely care about our interests and safety.”

“Earlier student leaders were focused on public advocacy, while the current squad is focused on public service,” Haupt notes. “Claire and I always say that DAYLO is a welcoming umbrella. Each group decides what DAYLO is to them, we support their vision.”

Fourteen students recently created a youth engagement tool kit for “Get Ready, Stay Ready” (getreadystayready.info). It provides resources young people need to create their own DAYLO chapters or to adapt programs for existing book clubs and service organizations.

“It’s based at the South Carolina Center for Community Literacy,” Haupt says. “We’ve been working on it for months as another way to share nationally what we’ve learned.”

Giving back also can happen on a smaller scale. During Beaufort’s Chalk It Up! art festival in March, Haupt discovered that former DAYLO student leader Isabella “Izzy” Troy Brazoban was giving a newcomer, Makayla “Mak” Perry, an impromptu tour of the Conroy Center, including a BHS yearbook from when Conroy taught there.

Haupt says it was an affecting moment on more than one level.

“Izzy found us. She was the student we never could have predicted,” he says. “She found representation and comfort in books that she didn’t find elsewhere. Books saved her life. We invited her to a DAYLO meeting, and she found her people.”

The BHS yearbook was an opportunity for Izzy to share with Mak a little-known moment from Conroy’s legacy. Preintegration, the high school had nearly one hundred Black students through the Freedom of Choice program. In the wake of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassination, they wanted to form an African American Culture Club.

“The principal told them they could only do it if they had a faculty advisor, and the faculty wasn’t integrated yet,” Haupt says. “Then Pat Conroy stepped up. It was 1968. Already BHS students were organizing around ideas of social justice.”

After a pause, he adds, “In a way, DAYLO started then.”

Bennett also acknowledges the legacy of Pat Conroy, noting that it runs deeply through the fabric of DAYLO, and of Beaufort itself.

“All of us together have a direct line to it,” she says. “We have to ask ourselves, ‘How do we continue that legacy? How can we work together?’”

For Conroy, the answer was servant leadership.

“Pat learned that when he taught on Daufuskie Island,” Haupt says. “Build trust, learn what the needs are, and then ask, ‘How can I help? What can I add?’”

That is DAYLO’s answer as well, as the students champion literacy, engage in difficult but essential conversations through books, and work hard to build bridges in a world that often seems determined to tear them down. They are harnessing the power of storytelling to change the world, starting with their own communities.

In a 1968 letter to one of his own BHS mentors, Dr. Bill Dufford, Conroy wrote, “That is immortality. For what I have learned from you, I will pass on, and will be passed on and passed on.” The students and mentors of DAYLO embody that legacy — and they pass it on.