Laura Seney
Welcome to Live Wire, a podcast powered by Kosciusko REMC. We are a member owned and locally operated cooperative that supplies electricity to portions of Kosciusko, Fulton, Wabash, and Whitley counties, here in northern Indiana. Live Wire is a program where we come together to discuss co-op matters, energy, community topics, and to communicate with KREMC members. I am your host, Laura Seney.

Laura Seney
Hello and welcome back to another episode of Live Wire. Joining us in studio today is Krista Layman, director and co-founder of Kate's Kart, a local nonprofit organization providing books to children in the hospital. She is here to discuss what her organization does and how Kosciusko REMC's program, Operation Roundup, has impacted them. For
background, for our listeners, Operation Round Up is a voluntary program that allows KREMC members to round up their bill to the nearest dollar. Those extra cents are donated to the program fund held at the Kosciusko County Community Foundation. The KREMC committee then reviews nonprofit application and distributes the grants. We are excited to hear from one of these organizations in our local community today. Hi Krista, how are you doing?

Krista Layman
Great. Thanks for having me.

Laura Seney
Awesome. We're glad to have you. What is Kate's Kart and what is your mission?

Krista Layman
Kate's Kart, like you said, is a local nonprofit. We were founded in Fort Wayne, Indiana. Our mission is to provide a comforting diversion to hospitalized kids. And we do that through the gifting of new books.

Laura Seney
That's awesome. Books definitely bring a lot of comfort. What is the story behind your organization?

Krista Layman
Yeah. The story. The story really starts with our daughter, Kate. My husband, Andy and I had a beautiful little girl in 2006. Unfortunately, we found out soon after she was born that she had a heart defect. Which meant a lot of days in the hospital. Actually, over 180 days in the hospital where Kate was diagnosed without having a pulmonary artery. And then multiple procedures, including five open heart surgeries where doctors and physicians tried to fix her heart. Unfortunately, she only lived to be 18 months.
We know that we tried everything, but, her heart just couldn't withstand it. So, after her passing, obviously our family, we were left brokenhearted as well. And how could we keep her memory alive? So many times you're asked, as a young family, how many children do you have? And we found that question really trying because we didn't want to leave her out of our family, even though she wasn't here with us anymore. She was still a vital part of our family. So during our hospital stays, we found a lot of power through
reading. Kate was very frail. Obviously having that many heart surgeries, she wasn't able to walk or crawl. But she could read a book or look at a book or the fuzzy dog or the slimy scale of the snake or whatever it was. So plus there was at least a month after her first open heart surgery where we couldn't even pick her up. So reading is how we bonded with her. Reading is how we let her know that we were there. Because, you know, with an infant, with the child, you can't really have that discussion. But parents voice is so powerful and so healing. So we read to her a lot. So we just knew that books was going to be the tool that we could use. We didn't get any books. From our hospital stays here in Fort Wayne. And so we reached out to Lutheran, in Fort Wayne and said, hey, we have this little it's just a little idea, just a mustard seed idea.
Of how to encourage other families and to help us heal. So five months after she passed, in June of 2008, we started that first card. My husband and I, and we pushed it, and we were able to give out books to kids that were in the hospital. And boom, all of a sudden it's been 17 years.

Laura Seney
Wow.

Krista Layman
Yeah.

Laura Seney
Thank you for sharing your story and your journey. And, you know, thank you for taking a tragedy and, you know, making sure that other people who are going through similar things, can have some comfort during those times. And you've covered this a little bit already. But how does Kate's Kart impact kids?

Krista Layman
So I think any child, even any family who is experiencing a hospital visit, it's scary. I don't care if it's your first visit to the E.R. because of a high fever or a fall out of a bunk bed, or if it's another weekly visit because your child has chronic illness. Being in the hospital is just hard. It's lonely. There's a lot of waiting. There's a lot of, people coming in and out of your room. And so what we found from our own experience and what we hear time after time from testimony and letters from those who've been impacted by our program, is thank you for providing a sense of normalcy. Thank you for providing some comfort, some diversion. Just anything that has takes us away from the current crisis per se, that we're in the current environment and making it a little bit more real. Parents who have NICU babies tell us, you know, it was the first time we felt like a parent. We couldn't necessarily hold our baby. We couldn't feed them, but we could read to them. We've had parents tell us. Thank you. It's the first time that book made my child smile in days. You know, perhaps a new diagnosis or an illness. And whether it was a funny character in a book or a silly line in a book and, like, saw our child smile for the first time. You know, thank you for giving us something to do with our child. Thank you for, reminding us the importance of the healing that can come just through bonding as a family.

Laura Seney
Yeah. It's amazing how the little things in life, the small things like a book, can really make a big difference when you're going through a difficult time. How many hospitals is Kate's Kart located in currently?

Krista Layman
It's crazy. So, like I mentioned, it was a little idea that we would just start at Lutheran. We truly, as a family, thought, well, we'll do this for like six months, maybe a year. With the memorial money that we received after her, passing. But it's 17 years. We're currently in 25 hospitals. So we serve kind of the whole northeast Indiana
corner and Ohio. So maybe we're global. I don't know, we're on our way. But those 25 hospitals have 46 carts in them. Some of the larger hospitals, might have a cart in the emergency room and the pediatric floor, the med surge floor, if there's an oncology unit, that kind of thing. So, 46 carts out there filled with brand new books that are bringing hope and joy and normalcy to kids all over Indiana.

Laura Seney
That's incredible. It's incredible what a tiny, small little idea can grow into over the course of 17 years. With the support of the community around you. How many books do you distribute every year?

Krista Layman
We're on a growth. We did slow down a little bit during Covid just because it was harder to get into the hospitals, but we've been growing year after year. This past year we gave out, 52,000 books in a year. In July of this year of 2025, we celebrated the amazing milestone of half a million books that we have given out, to kids over, over the journey of kids cart. So we're on track. I think, to maybe be in the 54,000ish range. But like I said, we're that trajectory is growing every year as we continue to add hospitals continue to add carts and just, be more impactful in the in the hospitals we're serving.

Laura Seney
That's awesome.

Krista Layman
It's about 4 to 5000 books a month.

Laura Seney
That is actually a little bit mind blowing when you think about it.

Krista Layman
It is I, I always find myself like I was at a comets game and I looked up how many seats are in the Memorial Coliseum. And I'm like, okay, like we give out more than this books, you know, so like see it because we're just doing it day by day, right? Every day. Books are coming into our office, every day books are leaving. But then to, like, try to quantify that number in one location. It really is mind blowing.

Laura Seney
Yeah. And it's easy to, like, hear a big number and not really process it. And then you, like, look at a stadium and you're like, that is a lot of people.

Krista Layman
Yeah, I think the University of Michigan Stadium's 100,000 people and like so we could put five books on every seat in that stadium.

Laura Seney
That's wild. It's crazy.

Krista Layman
It's just it's mind blowing and it's just humbling. Yeah, because we couldn't do it without the community support. Yeah, it's amazing what can happen.

Laura Seney
Yes. What are some of the most popular books you distribute?

Krista Layman
So like I said, our mission is to provide a comforting diversion. And that comfort for kids usually comes through characters that they know and love. So again, in a hospital situation, a young child, a lot of foreign, a lot of foreign equipment for people they don't know. And so they're instantly drawn to any character or book that they know because it takes them home. It says, I know this. And so in this unknown environment, all of a sudden the Disney Princess or Jenny Jones or, series that they've been reading for years, like, I know this, this is comfort. So, you know, we serve 0 to 18 with the little kids. Paw Patrol, Bluey is huge right now with the little ones. Then you get into, like, the picture books. The kids love animal books. Dinosaurs again. Princesses. We have a wonderful series of books that come with a necklace or a ring or a bracelet. And the girls just love those. But we're also serving, teens as well. And so there's chapter books, Diary of a Wimpy Kid. It's been around every year since we started. I think there's coming out with his 20th book this year. But then there's also, you know, activity books, world record books. Just fun books to read. So, the important thing is that there are those popular titles that the kids recognize, and all of a sudden that's like, okay, I know this. I'm comfortable, something that I know, and that just helps them in that time.

Laura Seney
Yeah, it's amazing how much the books from your childhood and even your teen years kind of stick with you, because I'm sure, like, I still have books on my bookshelf from when I was a teenager and I or even like, younger than that in elementary, where you learn to read for the first time and those really stick with you.

Krista Layman
Yeah, the that's where we serve, NICU, is, which are the neonatal ICU. So, babies that are born sick like Kate, maybe they were born too early. And so those families are there for weeks. And I love it when we're there and you knock on the door. It's Kate's Kart day. And maybe mom is holding the baby or busy. And they she sends dad out and he's like, okay, I got to pick out the perfect book. Like, what do we have? And like, he sees Doctor Seuss and like, oh. And he's like, oh my gosh, this was my favorite book from when I was a child. I remember reading this. And so again, that connection of bringing their childhood and then being able to share that favorite book with their child.
It's just an awesome experience to see.

Laura Seney
Yeah. That's incredible. Do you have a personal favorite children's book?

Krista Layman
I do, I, I was a teacher before, this life change. And, I'm totally honored to be able to do this for a living, but. So I love books. Obviously, our favorite book to read, the Kate, was a book called Runaway Bunny. And it's about a little bunny that, talks about what if I do this and run away and the mother bunny's like, well, then I will come find you and I will go in a rocket ship and find you in space and, that was probably our favorite, huge fan of, Eric Carle. Love all of his books. And I'm also a huge fan of Mo Willems and the Elephant and Piggy books. Such fun books to read aloud. Lots of emotion that you can put into the book. To do that, read aloud. Yes, those are all great books. There's so many I with this, you know, having almost personally seen when I think, okay, I like seeing 500,000 books come in to our office and, and be distributed and new ones come along every day and I, I'm like, this is a great book. This is a great book. This is a great book. There's so many amazing children's books out there.

Laura Seney
Yeah, there really are.

Krista Layman
So many creative people. The crayon, crayons that came back or something like that. Amazing. Hilarious story.

Laura Seney
Yes. So, so much creativity goes into those. Yeah. It's very cool. Do you have a favorite story or moment that really shows the impact of Kate's cart?

Krista Layman
So how long do we have? I could talk for days about the stories. What's amazing to me is because of the hospital and HIPAA and privacy, I know we are only catching a glimpse of, the stories of what's happening with these books, because we have to have the people come to us to tell those stories. And if you're listening and you have been impacted by a book, coming back and telling us these stories is one of the greatest gifts you can give to Kate's Kart. But several ones we heard, a story from a man. He stopped us in the parking lot, and he wanted to tell us about how, like 13 years ago, he was in the with his daughter he talked about how she was having seizures, and so she had to be hospitalized for several days and be monitored, and they were doing, scans and stuff like that. And we had given them curious George goes to the hospital and he
said, she read that book over and over. She was only like four, but she left that hospital knowing every word, sight, word in that book. He goes, that book brought us so much joy and laughter during those scary days. And he whips out his arm and says I got a tattoo and he had a tattoo of Curious George and the man in the yellow hat on his arm. And he was just like, that book made a forever impact in our family is like, my daughter's, going to go to school for nursing because that experience normalized for hospital. Just heard this summer about a family who, unfortunately had a child that only lived for ten days and they never really got to be parents. They never got to do the things that every parent should be able to do with their child. The only thing they could do was read, and that's what their parenting journey was, was just reading to their child. And they put that book on the tombstone. That's what family, that's the good memory they had of those ten days. But we hear stories of kids who jump out of bed and hug the volunteers because they got that brand new release of Diary of a Wimpy Kid, and they would never, ever be able to have that for themselves. You know, when they hear I get to take this home like this is mine. This is my copy. It's just overwhelming what a book can do. It's, it's a 5 to $10 book. But it is so much more powerful when it's put in the right place at the right time.

Laura Seney
Yeah. It's amazing how much those stories can impact us and become a part of our stories and our lives.

Krista Layman
Yeah. So many just amazing stories of people who said we were hurting. We were at our lowest and you were there for us. Just through the gift of a book. And that's pretty awesome.

Laura Seney
Yeah. Yeah, it's amazing the impact a book can have.

Krista Layman
It is. It is truly.

Laura Seney
You kind of already covered this. What does it mean to a child in their family to receive a book while in the hospital?

Krista Layman
Yeah, I know the days and days that I spent sitting in Kate's hospital room and most of her days were in Indianapolis, or, her final three months were up in Peyton Manning or Peyton Manning was where she was in Indianapolis, Mott Children's Hospital, up at University of Michigan, and like, it's lonely and the world is going on and, you know, you look on social media or whatever and feel like everybody else going about their life. And I'm here just waiting for the doctor to come in and tell me what's next. So for these families to know that somebody's thinking of me in this time, I think is huge. I think to provide that to distraction, people rushing to ERs and they don't they're not thinking about packing a bag to, you know, of something to do for the six hours that they're, they're waiting. So to have that, even the families who know that they're going to the hospital, just to have something new, just to have a surprise, just to have somebody knocking on their door and saying, hey, I just want to bless you today with a small book. It's just it's the community. It's just knowing that we are not meant to do life alone. And so Kate's Kart is there for your hospital visit.

Laura Seney
Yeah. It's awesome. It definitely makes sense that it brings back an element of humanity. To hospitals that are often, you know, very sterile and kind of can take that away.
How do you choose what books go on the carts?

Krista Layman
Yeah. So fun. Like I mentioned earlier, we are about, popular titles, so really paying attention to bestseller lists. Anytime there's a new movie that comes out, it kind of ignites an excitement for that for that series, that book. And, you know, we've been doing it 17 years. We know what flies off the carts. We know what books the volunteers are, reaching out to us and saying, hey, yeah, we're all out of princess books, or we're all out of Dog Man books. So bright colors, fun, interactive. The amazing thing is we're able to buy them in bulk from publishers. And so that may be a $15, $20 book, but we're able to get it for $4 and make it affordable for us as a nonprofit to be able to provide these great, fun, current title books.

Laura Seney
That's awesome. What are some challenges your organization is facing?

Krista Layman
Yeah. I would say overwhelmingly we're blessed. But, you know, as a nonprofit, we're governed by a board of directors who have a passion for us. And I think one of the things is, is our growth and our sustainability into the future. I have looked and researched and have not found another organization like ourselves in the country. I have found book programs that serve one hospital. But I have not found another outside organization that serves multiple hospitals within multiple networks. So we're serving Parkview Health, we're serving Lutheran Health, we're serving IU health, and we're even serving the independent ones. So, just learning how to grow and expand, is always kind of a challenge because we're getting calls from all over the state, even all over the nation, saying, hey, how can we bring Kate's cart to our hospital? So having that strategic mindset of being able to grow but also be able to sustain us, I think honestly, the further we grow away from Fort Wayne, the harder it is to fundraise and support in that
community. So we don't want to just like, pick these random cities throughout the nation or throughout Indiana without having a plan of how we can support those, how can we fund raising that county? How can we get books to that county? And so that's probably the biggest challenge that we have, which is a great challenge, right? We would love to be able to grow, but just doing that in a way that makes sense and is sustainable.

Laura Seney
Yeah, that makes sense because often sustainability is one of the hardest challenges non-profits face.

Krista Layman
Exactly.

Laura Seney
How has Operation Roundup impacted you and your organization?

Krista Layman
So it's so important as we do grow and as we continue to serve counties outside of Allen County, that we have that support. I think we're probably most well known in Allen County because that's where our office is, I think there's 7 or 8 hospitals there that we serve our volunteers. Most of them live in Allen County, where they're sharing. So when the outside counties, which there's 14 of them, step up and say, we love what you're doing and we want to support what's happening in our county is just obviously helps us financially, but is also just a testament of that county saying, hey, you know, we want to help you do what you're doing to impact our residents. Here in Kosciusko, there's two hospitals. I think we have three carts. Between those two hospitals, you know, giving out thousands of books a year. So, Kosciusko REMC says we want to support your mission. It just affirms to us that they in what we're doing. Even though we're not have our office here. But we're impacting the residents of Kosciusko County and making their day brighter and their experience better. You know, I think KREMC has been us for well over ten probably over 40 to $50,000 that has been given to us, which I think is amazing. When you think about it, a lot of that just comes in by cents. You know, $0.10 here or $0.47 here or whatever. So again, a testament to community working together to do great things.

Laura Seney
Yeah. It's amazing. What just rounding up your electric bill, those couple extra cents. You know, you have thousands of people doing that over the course of many years. It has a huge, huge impact.

Krista Layman
Yes. You think, just one. But you know, if you bring a smile to the one kid. You know, it costs us $6.25 per book to purchase and deliver. You know $6.25. That's all it takes to make a forever impact on a child. That's incredible.

Laura Seney
I agree. And you covered this a little bit. But what dreams and goals do you ultimately have for Kate's Kart?

Krista Layman
Yeah that's hard. You know obviously as a founder our family my husband, he works as a teacher and we have two healthy boys. You know, this is this is our legacy. This is what we founded in in memory in honor of Kate. And so, I think the biggest question is what happens when we're not here? What happens when I have, you know,
grown older and joined Kate in heaven. I think my goal and hope is that for years to come, Kate's Kart will continue to just bring joy and hope, to the families and that families that have been impacted and those individuals will step up and say, this is this is making a difference. It made a difference in my life. And I want continue to
make Kate's Kart, make a difference in more lives. So, what that looks like, I don't know, but we've spent 1700 years, growing Kate's cart. We have an amazing community that supports us. So my dream is that every child that needs it, every family that's hurting, will have a book at home with a little purple sticker that says, this book is compliments of Kate's Kart. And the world will know that we're not alone.

Laura Seney
Yes, that is, a very good mission and goal to have.

Krista Layman
Yeah. It's needed and we've seen because of the support that the community wants it. So just because we're not here anymore, you know in the Layman family, and who knows what my boys will do. What role they'll play. I mean, it is my prayer that our family continues to play some role in it, but, that Kate's legacy will last forever.
Yeah. And that those books won't go away. I think that's another thing is in this digital world that we live in, like we can't get rid of the books, we can't get rid of that opportunity to snuggle in bed and to hear points parents voice, and to read together and to laugh. So if we can be the tool to keep books, books being published and, that physical copy of a book that's a better goal too.

Laura Seney
Yes, it's definitely a really important bonding experience. Whether you're in a hospital or not to read with your parents.

Krista Layman
Yeah, it's so many reports and studies prove the importance of it. And I think that brings so much joy when, and I don't get to do it as much as I used to, because we have this amazing volunteer, three year waitlist, almost of people wanting to go into the hospital and pass out the books. But when you pass out that book and, and the parents may be sitting on the bed on their phone and the kids in their bed, maybe watching TV, and you walk back past and mom or dad or caregivers are in bed with the child laughing, reading the book. I'm just like, yes. Mission accomplished. I mean, that's just it's so heartwarming to be able to see that. Okay. We provided that. We allowed that moment of healing to happen.

Laura Seney
Yeah it definitely makes it worthwhile.

Krista Layman
It is.

Laura Seney
How can people in the community get involved and help?

Krista Layman
Yes we love support in so many ways like I mentioned one. Have you been impacted by Kate's Kart. Do you have your story to tell. It you know we have Kate's Kart story, but you have a story as well, and that's just impactful. Share your story. We have amazing partnerships to purchase books at a discount, but when you start talking about 50,000 a year, that adds up. And so any financial support that you can give, whether it's $5 a month, whether it's a gift once a year, if you want to make a gift in honor of somebody's birthday, we'll send them a birthday card. We'll send them a letter letting them know that, a gift was made in their honor. If, you know, an organization that wants to get involved, maybe it's a service club. It's a women's club. It's a school. We love to partner with schools during, like, Scholastic Book Fair. We also do take donations of new books. And so perhaps it's, a book drive at your work and you collect Doctor Seuss books. We just finished up a crayon drive. We try to purchase all the crayons that we need for the year in August, when they're $0.50 instead of $1.50 or $2 throughout the year. So hosting crayon drives, penny wars. There's so many fun ways that you can get your community, your circle of influence, involved in and, make that impact and help, buy and purchase these books. We're happy to talk to anybody, about ways to, be involved will come share our story. We will do presentations, anything that we can do to allow the community to play that role. We're happy to do.

Laura Seney
That's awesome.

Krista Layman
Yeah. Just go to kateskart.org. We have lots of information on there. Reach out to us. We'd love to get you involved.

Laura Seney
That's awesome. Well, I hope that some of our listeners will do that, that they'll get involved and learn more about your guy's, organization and what you're doing. And see how they can contribute. Thank you for joining us today, Krista. And sharing about the immense impact of Kate's cart, the impact it's having on our community and the surrounding area. I hope you have a good rest of your day.

Krista Layman
Thanks, Laura, it was great to meet you and chat about Kate's Kart. Thanks for having us.

Laura Seney
Yes. Thank you for being here.

Krista Layman
Thanks.

Laura Seney
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Laura Seney
You have been listening to Live Wire, the official podcast of KREMC. To learn more about KREMC, visit our website KREMC.com or follow us on social media. Thanks for listening.