Bookmobile News

Our good friends at the Petaluma Community Foundation (PCF) have put together another strong collaboration, this time for our senior citizens!  Please come out to support this effort by doing your shopping at any of Sonoma County’s five Whole Foods stores on Wednesday, July 8.  PCF will receive 1% of all sales at all stores to put straight into this new Senior Collaboration.  The Free Bookmobile, with it’s strong record of service to our community’s elders, will receive funding as an integral part of the project, which also features PEP Housing, Petaluma People Services Center, Hope Counseling Services, Rebuilding Together Petaluma, and Daily Acts.

Check out the flyer below, feel free to distribute it throughout your networks, and come out on July 8 to support vital services for Petaluma’s seniors!

We are happy to have formalized our partnership this summer with creative local theater troupe the Imaginists! They will return to neighborhood parks around Roseland and Santa Rosa to once again provide bilingual puppet theater to the Redwood Empire Food Bank summer lunch crowds, and we will have our big green van o’ love in attendance at all shows. Since 2009 (the same year the Free Bookmobile was born!) the Imaginists have been bringing bicycle- and poetry-powered performances out to the people. More about this year’s edition:

The Art is Medicine Show / El Show el Arte es Medicina: The Garden bursts into life! Mr. and Mrs. Lizard have lost their wedding ring! A seashell sings! There is a poetic ode to the bicycle. Featuring the poetry of Federico García Lorca, The Art is Medicine Show is a fluid, visual, poetic extravaganza. A gaggle of suitcases open to reveal theaters in miniature; an ocean, outer space, and a vaudeville stage where tiny skeletons sing and dance. These are just some of the many worlds we carry by bicycle. Show runs approx. 30 minutes.

Here is the schedule…be sure to arrive early as start time is variable…and be sure to stick around afterward to grab some great new books to take home…remember we have titles in both English and Spanish…

July 2nd – Alicia Park @ 12:30
July 7th – Bayer Farm & Neighborhood Garden @ 12:30
July 9th – South West Community Park @ 12:30
July 21st – MLK Park @ 12:30

One of Sonoma County’s most honored traditions, the Luther Burbank Rose Parade & Festival has been a local favorite for 120 years!  This year’s theme, “Out of a Storybook”, is well matched to the Free Bookmobile’s mission and we were delighted to be invited to participate by Sonoma Media Group, the parent company of radio stations Mix 104.9, Froggy 92.9, Hot 101.7, The River 97.7, and KSRO 1350 AM.  Come join your fellow citizens in downtown Santa Rosa for the parade on Saturday morning, May 16, starting at 10 Am.  There will no doubt be some wonderfully creative floats on display, and be sure to look for our beautiful green book van alongside the Mix promotional truck!

Our friends at Impact100 Sonoma have a great reason to celebrate in 2015.  In just their first five years of existence, they have leveraged the power of “women giving as one” to bestow over $1,000,000 to non-profit organizations serving Sonoma Valley!  As the recipient of two of Impact100′s grants, the Free Bookmobile was profiled last year on their website and this year was the subject of a short film highlighting our work in the Valley and our partnership with this productive philanthropic group.  We feel very fortunate to have received the video camera spotlight, as only five of their numerous grantees were chosen for the honor.  Check it out below!

You can also view the work of some of Impact100′s other partners by clicking here to visit their website video page.  You can watch all of the Free Bookmobile’s other videos by clicking here to visit our YouTube channel.

Building on our strong relationship with Umpqua Bank, we are thrilled to welcome the Sonoma Umpqua branch to our list of book donation sites. We hope that this is a convenient location for many of our supporters in the Sonoma Valley — we want your books! Please consider which titles from your collection would be most appreciated by others and bring them in. If you don’t see a book bin in the bank lobby, just let one of their friendly staff know about your contribution and they will take the books behind the counter for us.

The location is 135 West Napa Street #101, Sonoma, and can be reached at 935-7800. Check the map below and come on by!

It’s the yummiest time of the year! Be sure to mark your calendar for Wednesday, April 8 for the return of Chocolate & Cinema to the Rialto Cinemas in downtown Sebastopol. From 6:30 – 7 Pm, sample prize-winning truffles, handmade chocolates, moist brownies, and other offerings from Sonoma County chocolatiers. Step inside the Free Bookmobile to browse our shelves for a great new read to take home. Then at 7:15, settle in to enjoy an old favorite on the big screen: Fried Green Tomatoes, starring Kathy Bates, Jessica Tandy, Mary-Louise Parker, and Mary Stuart Masterson.

All this and the warm company of your fellow book lovers is included in the $35 ticket. Click here to zoom right over and purchase yours on our Brown Paper Tickets event page (you can also pay at the door). Because the chocolate and movie are generous donations to this event, 100% of the proceeds will benefit the Sonoma County Public Library Foundation’s efforts to promote literacy, support special programs for the county library system, and, of course, keep the Free Bookmobile rolling steady! Even if you can’t make it that night (or — gasp! — are not a chocolate eater), this is a great time to make a tax-deductible contribution to our important work. You can use the form below, click here for our website donation page, or just send a check to SCPLF, 211 E Street, Santa Rosa, CA 95404.

In our first-ever grant win specifically for our Adult & Senior Services, we are elated to join the carefully selected group of programs that Sonoma Wine Country Weekend (SWCW) supports. SWCW is Sonoma County’s signature, and largest, charity event, bringing together over 200 of Sonoma’s top winemakers and growers, along with a collection of the area’s best chefs. Jointly produced by the Sonoma County Vintners and the Sonoma Valley Vintners & Growers Foundation, all proceeds benefit local charities. Since its inception, Sonoma Wine Country Weekend has raised over $12 million for charities that benefit students, children, farm workers and people in need in Sonoma County communities.

SWCW’s generous grant will help us bring high quality books free of charge to thousands of adults and seniors throughout Sonoma County in the coming year, especially those who are most challenged for access. This includes service directly to the residences of the frail and elderly, rural populations, residents with low incomes, farm and migrant workers, denizens of dense urban environments that lack a culture of reading (such as Roseland and the Sonoma Valley Springs area), and other underserved adults. At these bookmobile visits, all patrons will be able to browse and select books of choice to take home and keep as long as they wish, including audio and large-print titles for seniors with vision challenges, Spanish-language materials, and books that are specifically geared toward ESL learners and their families.

We look forward to a long and productive collaboration as part of the Sonoma Wine Country Weekend family. Thank you!

We have been fortunate to receive support from several Sonoma County Rotary clubs since our launch back in 2009. Rotary Club of Rohnert Park-Cotati was particularly helpful a few years ago in referring us to Downtown Autobody, which later applied our vehicle’s beautiful green paint job completely free of charge. We’ve also had a positive promotional relationship with member Irene Hilsendager’s media outlets, and member Tommy Sullivan has been looking after our rubber out of his Commerce Boulevard Big O’ Tires shop.

We had the honor of speaking to the club over breakfast recently to provide an update on the growth of our program. We all got excited about the possibilities of future collaboration, and member Gerard Giudice was inspired to invite us to help give away the dictionaries the club purchases each year for local 3rd graders. What a terrific idea! Two weeks later we rolled up to Monte Vista Elementary to make sure that the students not only brought home new dictionaries that day, but fabulous books of choice from our shelves as well. Pictured below is our Rotary Club of Rohnert Park-Cotati partner in literacy on the day, Micki Jones, whom we also know from our visits to her RP Boys & Girls Club. Thanks for a great event, Micki! And just let us know when you want us to help deliver some more dictionaries…

From day one, the Free Bookmobile staff have been keen to serve rural communities throughout our vast and rugged landscape. We researched the routes the old library system bookmobile followed, and tried opening our doors in lots of little towns (and even crossroads!) that didn’t always work out. Fortunately, many of the locales became regular stops for us as the locals expressed enthusiasm and appreciation for our service. In our sixth year of operation, these folks now know we are dedicated to leveraging our mobility to reach out to them with terrific books, month after month.

We are now happy to report that in addition to our public-access visits, we have been steadily building our routes directly to the schools that support these more remote communities. Last spring we made our first-ever visits to Monte Rio Union School and Forestville Academy, among others, serving hundreds of eager children — each and every student. This year we called the principal at Cloverdale’s Jefferson Elementary, who said “Sometimes we’re forgotten way up here.” It was our pleasure to set up multiple visits to Jefferson to make sure no one is left out. Because our books are for sharing, far and wide!

We are once again proud to announce the renewal of our very successful partnership with the Community Foundation Sonoma County Healdsburg Area Fund (CFSCH). Since its founding in 2003, CFSCH has grown its local endowment fund to $1.2 million and has secured pledges to that will grow the Fund into the future. The annual earnings from this endowment provide funding for an active local grants program, funding nonprofits serving our communities with both program and operational support. Since its inception CFSCH has granted over $433,000 to 33 nonprofit organizations in Healdsburg and Geyserville.

CFSCH directors decided to commemorate the 10th anniversary of the Fund in style — by celebrating for a whole year! And they wound it up by doing what they do best: identifying and supporting the projects that most benefit the area’s residents. Funding for the Free Bookmobile’s local operations were renewed in full, setting the stage for our 4th straight year of dedicated service to those most in need of literacy outreach. Thank you, Healdsburg Area Fund, for helping us continue our important work in such a caring community!