Engaging with the public to provide information regarding the Wade Center’s seven authors via tours, presentations and answering their one-on-one questions comes naturally to Office Assistant Hope Grant. Hope joined the Wade Center staff in 2017, and is an alumna of the Wheaton Graduate School with a M.A. in Communications. She has used her degree in a variety of settings, including Christianity Today and Oasis Audio where she conducted market research studies on a variety of topics, gaining a better understanding of how to support Seekers and Christians on matters of faith.
As the coordinator of lay readers in her church for over 20 years, Hope takes great pleasure in conducting “Story Times” with younger visitors during Homecoming & Commencement weekends, and Spring Staycation. Beginning with C.S. Lewis’s The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, she then added J.R.R. Tolkien’s Father Christmas Letters and most recently ventured into the fantasy genre of George MacDonald with a dramatic reading of The Light Princess adapted by Elaine Hooker, Catalog Librarian.
Hope has been an active member of the Wheaton Public Library’s Friends of the Library for nearly a decade. This involvement has informed her of fresh ways to present the Wade bookshop’s merchandise to the public. Her desire is for visitors to find just the “right” book that will enrich the recipient’s life.