Young girl's book strikes chord with Goldsboro fire department

GOLDSBORO, N.C. (WTVD) -- Five-year-old Madelyn Hinnant loves to read, write, and illustrate.

Since she's been learning from home during COVID-19, she opted to write a book of her own about firefighters.

The Goldsboro resident's parents took notice, seeing how similar Madelyn's book was to that of the one's being read by members of the Goldsboro Fire Department.

"I just sent it in and said hey, I thought this was kind of cute," Madelyn's dad Brad confessed with his daughter and wife by his side during a Facetime interview. "I wasn't expecting them to play it."

But play they did. Madelyn's book quickly becoming one of the most popular posts on the Fire Department's Facebook page.

Since COVID-19, the department has been working to transform how they interact with the community.

"We thought we could reach out, we could help some parents from pulling out their hair out with heir kids, by maybe, if we could, engage them for a few seconds with a story," Fire Chief Joe Dixon said of the online reading.

Dixon's department is hoping that what they read is more than just words on a page.

"We want to make sure to continue to connect in any way that we can so that when we do connect with our community it doesn't have to be on the worst day of their life when they have a fire," Chief Dixon said.

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The fire department is taking submissions from anyone who would like to read or submit a piece of their own work, regardless if outside of the Goldsboro community. You can submit here.