Bookmobile News

A new collection of photographs is now proudly showcased on our website.  If you are reading this post on our News page, just click “Photos” on the left menu bar.  Otherwise please take a moment right now to visit http://sonomacountybookmobile.org, choose “Photos”, then “2011″, then click on the three girls to enter our fall gallery.  These pictures highlight our travels of the past several months as we kicked things into high gear, full-time on the job.  Enjoy!  And if any of our supporters out there have shots of us in action, we’d love to see them.  You can always email us at glen@sonic.net.

We are very pleased to announce yet another expansion of our popular services: we are now bringing books to 10 important yet underserved Sonoma County communities each and every month.  Residents had frequently asked when we could return and how often.  Our new commitment is a big step forward in standardizing our routes and offering assurance to those without traditional library services that we will be there for them.  By checking our “Schedule” webpage at the end of each month, anyone can find our next date of return to those high-priority locations, chosen primarily for their distance from a library branch (along with a few other factors).

The monthly route communities are: Geyserville, Larkfield, Cotati, Roseland/SW Santa Rosa, Boyes Hot Springs, Kenwood/Glen Ellen, Monte Rio, Jenner, Bodega Bay, and Valley Ford.  These visits will be on weekends when more residents are available to meet us.

If you have enjoyed the Free Bookmobile in a different location – don’t worry!  We will continue to host additional events in order to serve the entire county, especially in conjunction with fairs, festivals, and other special events at which we’re likely to reach a lot of people.  It helps when we know about them well in advance, so please include us in first notifications, especially if your event reaches kids, seniors, or low-income families.

We will also continue our weekday focus on child outreach.  In addition to our regular rotation of preschools and child development centers, we have added the regional Boys & Girls Clubs to our schedule planning.  Our first outings to the Rohnert Park and Geyserville clubs were so much fun!  Big thanks to all you book donors out there who are bringing in fresh titles for the range of kids we are serving.  Keep ‘em coming!

Our good friend Rayne Wolfe has put us in the limelight once again on the Petaluma Patch news website.  This time she is covering our big news with the United Way Children’s Book Drive result, and our expansion to full-time operation.  Check it out:

http://petaluma.patch.com/articles/books-blood-and-the-meaning-of-giving

Patch describes itself as a community-specific news and information platform dedicated to providing comprehensive and trusted local coverage for individual towns.  We are very happy to see news outlets taking a hyper-local approach to community building, and appreciative that they are helping spread awareness of our mission.  Thank you, Rayne!

Jennifer, Glen and Stacy celebrate in the 'mobile

In a testament to the generosity of Sonoma County residents, the First Annual United Way Children’s Book Drive netted 5,118 books for needy children and teens!  This is a truly amazing number considering that we set out hoping to collect 1,000 books and the drive lasted a mere two weeks.  Everyone involved responded beautifully.  Thank you, first of all, to everyone who got into the sharing spirit by going home and scouring the family library for goodies.  Thanks to all the host site Exchange Bank staff members who spread the word to their customers and encouraged them to fill the bins.  Thanks to the can-do folks at JDS Uniphase, who got behind the drive in a big way to pull in some special collections for us.  Thanks to all of the drivers and loaders who transported the books to the United Way office while Free Bookmobile staff was out of town.

And of course, a huge thank you to the tremendous United Way of the Wine Country staff, especially drive coordinator Stacy Ruppert, Jennifer O’Donnell, and all of their team members who lifted, sorted, counted, labeled, and boxed the books.  This is a real victory, boosting our supply at just the right time, and it will give thousands of children access to books that they wouldn’t otherwise have.  We began handing them out at low-income summer programs the very next day!

Melissa Kelley ready for her neighborhood parade

At the Free Bookmobile, we feel strongly about service to one’s community and thereby to one’s nation.  America has a very proud tradition of creative, hard-working folks making a difference, making an positive impact on each other.  It’s been our quest since the beginning to fly our flag and play our anthem in recognition of this spirit – the spirit in which we crafted the bookmobile.  So we were very happy this Independence Day to finally realize that dream, on our second anniversary!

We served our fellow citizens, our fellow Americans, at no less than four different events – a single-day record for the bookmobile.  After beginning with the runners in Kenwood at the Hometown Breakfast fundraiser, we had the pleasure of joining a neighborhood parade and book drive near the home of Literary Arts Guild Director Melissa Kelley.  Melissa puts a terrific quality of care and dedication into the Free Bookmobile and it seemed just right to capture her with our beautiful new quilted flag, created by Lois Breida.

Lois is a Friend of the Seaside Library near Monterey, where she met my mother, Sandra Weaver, who is a past president.  My mom wasn’t always involved with the library but her dedication and long hours when raising kids (and working full-time) nonetheless inspired me while launching the Free Bookmobile.

Lois learned of our project through Sandra and was moved to help by lending her quilting skills.  Despite some challenges during the process, she produced a quilt with special touches such as the stars and fireworks patterns on the fabric, and the inspirational words on the back.  We are proud to hang it by the driver window, visible to all who board the vehicle, and will likely keep it there year-round.

The parade was full of excitement, all the kids got books and bookmarks at the end, and then we set sail for Boyes Hot Springs and other eastern provinces.  It was a great Independence Day.  Thank you, Lois, for helping make our dreams come true!

With gratitude,

Glen

Lois Breida with her creation

It’s been a delight getting to know the King family since the day star volunteer Karina introduced herself via email back in January.  It’s only fitting that they should be the subject of public admiration in a great story in the Sunday Press Democrat.  The online version can be found here:

http://www.pressdemocrat.com/article/20110710/ARTICLES/107101033/1033/news?p=1&tc=pg

The best part is that everyone in the family gets involved, everyone helps, and Karina was the first to jump in as a shelver on board the new vehicle.  She also earned a volunteer ride-along in the Free Bookmobile.  She was ready to go on that March morning, and sure enough,  put in a marathon day to help serve up over 1,100 books to low-income families.

We”d like to take this opportunity to thank all of our volunteers who commit themselves selflessly toward our mission.  Bill Brand and his wife have been putting in a lot of hours, always with a smile on their faces.  And of course in terms of pure enthusiasm, Carrie Hess and Melissa Kelley are just wonderful.  We couldn’t do this amazing work without you!

Our new friends at the United Way of the Wine Country have put together a terrific book drive to boost the upcoming expansion of our outreach.  After we attended the Taylor Mountain Elementary School Literacy Fiesta as part of their Schools of Hope initiative, United Way’s Jennifer O’Donnell and Stacy Ruppert came away inspired to support our mission.  They designed a two-week campaign to bring in as many books for kids and young adults as possible, and invited Exchange Bank and JDS Uniphase to help.

The drive kicks off today!  And for the next two weeks, JDSU and Exchange Bank locations all around the county will accept children’s books for us (click here for the full list of donation sites).  Our goal is to collect 1,000 new and gently used titles, which will then be distributed to kids living in rural and low-income areas.  We have an ambitious summer schedule planned, including visits to programs such as City of Santa Rosa’s Summer Recreation, Redwood Empire Food Bank Summer Lunch, and Graton Rancheria TANF Family camps.  Please help if you can – we’ll need enough books to go around!

From the United Way website:

“With the Schools of Hope program, United Way is working to ensure children who are struggling with reading receive the extra help needed in order to reach reading proficiency. Studies show the number of books a child owns is directly related to their ability to read and do well in school. Our goal is to collect 1,000 books within the two weeks to donate to the Sonoma County Free Bookmobile.

Give the gift of reading and make a difference in a child’s life.”

And thank you for your continued support…

The potential of the Free Bookmobile is calling.  On June 15, I will leave my job with COTS to devote full-time attention to literacy and love of reading.  It’s time to expand our outreach to service the core need: early access to books, which predicts the success of our children, the success of the next generation.  With drastic cuts being made to library and educational programs, the Free Bookmobile must step up.  It’s the right thing to do and the right time to do it.

And we need your help!  We need your help to fund the production of these terrific events, to send needy kids home with books clutched to their chests and smiles broadening their faces.  Fortunately we’ve been graced with a very generous $2,500 matching grant to kick off our fundraising drive.  Every dollar you can invest in this crucial expansion of our mission will be instantly doubled!

We are already beginning our new routes to bring books directly to schools, such as the Kawana and Willow Creek preschools we just visited.  We will supply early literacy program events, and continue to develop creative partnerships like our long-term loan of the original Free Bookmobile vehicle to the children at Landpath’s Bayer Farm in Roseland.

Please take a moment right now to boost our children’s access to books, to grow new brain pathways and stimulate a love of reading that will serve them the rest of their lives.  Click here to make a tax-deductible donation online, or please send a check to the Sonoma County Free Bookmobile, PO Box 159, Santa Rosa, CA 95402.

Thank you so very much for your support!

Glen

Today’s contribution comes from one of our youngest and most dedicated volunteers, 12-year-old Karina King.  For months now, Karina and her family members Dori, Warren, and Carlee have been putting in a ton of hours collecting and sorting books, driving donations, helping out at our give-away events, and doing research in support of our mission.  Karina even scored the first official ride-along in the new ‘mobile!  Here is the speech she gave to her schoolmates in Petaluma during her knighting ceremony…

My community service project was with the Sonoma County Free Bookmobile.  The Sonoma County Free Bookmobile is really trying to get books to people who either can’t afford them or who need to spend money on something else.  The Bookmobile travels all around Sonoma County.  Here are a few cities I visited:  Forestville, Graton, Occidental, Santa Rosa and Sebastopol.  I did a book drive at school and collected over 650 books.  I also picked books up at two of the drop-off locations:  COTS in Petaluma and Paul’s Engine Shop in Santa Rosa.

While I was at one of the locations I noticed the people there were very grateful for the Bookmobile.  Some of the people found armfuls of books and even had to make second trips.  The kids who found books were very excited and happy while others who found few or nothing at all simply walked away.  The bookmobile helps kids enjoy books and reading more by teaching them it can be fun.

During my knighting task I used kindness and generosity as I helped kids and adults enjoy reading more.  But I think most important was I volunteered with pleasure.  I did not volunteer because I had to, but because my love for books is so strong and I want to share that with people.  After volunteering for the bookmobile it has made me realize that I too can make a difference for those who wish to read and may not have the chance at all in their life.

Ever since upgrading our service to the new vehicle back in November, we’ve been wondering how to put the old Free Bookmobile trailer to best use.  Fortunately, super-volunteer June Michaels was in touch about a plan to install it at Landpaths’ Bayer Farm in southwest Santa Rosa.  As described on the website, “Bayer Neighborhood Park and Gardens is a unique collaboration between Santa Rosa Recreation & Parks and LandPaths.  It is a 6-acre urban farm & city park-in-the-making in the heart of the Roseland neighborhood, 2 miles from Downtown Santa Rosa, with old barns, community gardens, and plenty of ways to relax and have fun.”  And now, thanks to June, the Santa Rosa Friends of the Library, and the Free Bookmobile team, one of those ways to have fun will be to browse and take home great books!

We have always enjoyed our previous visits to Bayer Farm to distribute books, including a terrific collaboration with Carnival of Chaos as part of the ArtsSonoma festival last year.  It seems a perfect home at which to set up the old trailer, the interior of which is known affectionately as the “Kids Club” because children of all ages can crawl in to browse the shelves in perfect literary coziness.  Fortunately Landpaths management agrees, and we will be working closely with Outreach Coordinator Magdalena Ridley to deliver a fully stocked mini-library to the farm as soon as the ground dries enough to drive it into place.

We are just thrilled that the families in this low-income neighborhood will have continual access to high quality free books, and that this long-term loan of facilities will essentially double our presence in the county.  It helps address one of the most serious problems created by recent cuts to education: access to literacy materials.  The Free Bookmobile will continue to seek creative solutions to this problem, and we welcome your support.