Bookmobile News

It’s hard to get through a week of news without hearing of yet another cut to literacy resources for children.  One of the latest decisions announced (http://www.pressdemocrat.com/article/20110310/ARTICLES/110309425) will slash six librarian positions from the Santa Rosa City Schools roster.  At the Free Bookmobile, we are saddened that the trustees are forced into the position to make these tough calls – it can’t be easy to find $3 million in savings.  And yet we wonder how much leverage will be lost with these cuts.  When you help and encourage a child to read, you set them on a course they can broaden themselves, as they mature and are able to understand more of the world’s discourse.  A little access early in life can lead to engagement and participation later on.  This is participation we need.  There is much to be done to strengthen our communities and we need all hands on deck.

The Sonoma County Free Bookmobile is proud to help fill this gap.  We have recently met several teachers and librarians who were excited to find us because it meant they could bring fresh books back to their students.  In communities across the county, in places like Jenner, Geyserville, and yes, even downtown Santa Rosa at our recent high-school outreach, we heard that budgets are eliminated, and that school staff members are scrambling for materials.  Our response is simple: “Here’s a bag.  Fill it up with books and take it to your kids.”

We are also keen to make visits directly to schools with fewest resources.  Last week, in partnership with the United Way and California Parenting Institute, the Free Bookmobile made an evening trip to Taylor Mountain Elementary School in south Santa Rosa, to provide books to low-income children and their parents taking part in a Literacy Fiesta.  Though weekday events are usually a challenge for the volunteer Free Bookmobile staff, we look forward to shifting more attention to the growing need in schools and pre-schools.

More later on our plans to make that happen, and in the meantime, please bring us all your children’s and young adult books that are just sitting around!  We’ll get them into new hands and eager young minds.

For me, there are few greater pleasures in this life than being part of the growth of the next generation.  And so it was as I received an invitation to come speak to the 5th and 6th grade students at Santa Rosa Accelerated Charter School in Rincon Valley.  Teacher Leslie Loopstra had read about the bookmobile and proposed to not only ask if I could come show the kids the vehicle, but to take immediate action on our behalf.  Before I knew a thing about it, the children, their families, and the staff at SRACS started a book drive and held a bake sale to benefit our service.  This is education of the highest caliber – raising awareness of what is really happening in our world and then organizing significant, constructive participation in it.

The kids ran excitedly out in their fuzzy slippers to greet me (this was both their Read Across America Day AND Pajama Day) as I drove in.  An assembly was called and it was my distinct honor to speak to over 100 students about the story of the bookmobile and community service in general.  One girl held up a book of Grimm’s Fairy Tales she had found on our shelves the previous weekend at the Health Fair.  Several students surrounded me after the talk to describe how much they love to read.  All of them got a chance to come on board and check out the bookmobile interior.  Comments included “This is soooo cool!”, “I want to live in here forever”, and “Man, you could make this into an awesome taco truck!”.  As I prepared to depart, they presented me with bags and boxes of fantastic children’s books, as well as $281 their families had raised selling cookies and brownies!  Just what we need most as we prepare for expansion of services: books for little ones and funding for our outreach operations.

Huge thanks to the SRACS community for these gifts, and indeed, for the best gift of all, the opportunity to be involved in the students’ education.

Glen Weaver, Director

When considering our vehicle upgrade options, we kept high in mind access for persons with physical challenges.  Our previous layout was very friendly to those in wheelchairs and walkers – they could move amongst the rolling carts with ease, and the trailer side-window shelves seemed to be at a useful height.  Some of the bookmobiles on the used market feature powered wheelchair lifts and in fact we came close to making a deal on one.  Fortunately that fell through because we ended up with a much better overall rig, one that should serve the people of Sonoma County effectively and efficiently for many years to come.  And thanks to funding from First 5 Sonoma County for modifications, we were able to outfit it with an access ramp.

Mobile ramps strike a balance between weight, strength, and length.  The heavier and longer the ramp is, the more difficult it is to handle and store.  It must be strong enough, however, to support someone in a bulky wheelchair plus an attendant at the same time.  It must also be long enough to provide a reasonable slope up into the vehicle.  Our top stair terminates at about 28″ off the ground, so this is not a trivial consideration!  We settled on a 2-piece LiteRamp in a 10′ length and our initial deployments have worked out well.

At our first trial in Cotati, we came to appreciate the non-skid surface, which several patrons in walkers utilized as they slowly made their way down the ramp, applying their brakes to steady the descent.  Then we scheduled a day of visits to senior residences exclusively.  Again the ramp proved trustworthy, as at one point two helpers kept a person in a wheelchair slow and straight coming down.  The three of us plus the chair must have weighed at least 600 lbs, well within the weight limit, and it was smooth sailing.  While inside the bookmobile, the chair passed easily down the corridor between the children’s benches.  Of course some of the shelves are a bit high for seated browsing, so we are always on-hand to assist with that part, too.

We had one more milestone in store for us that day.  From an assisted-living facility in Healdsburg, a 103-year-old woman with a walker made her way independently up the ramp to look for large-print books.  Thanks to our wonderful community donors, we had several in stock to offer her!

11-year-old conscript Edgerrin Weaver weighs in again today with his perspective on the new Free Bookmobile:

Dear Supporters,

The new bookmobile takes a lot of work off my back compared to the old trailer.  I mean, THANK HEAVENS I don’t have to help attach it to our truck anymore.  It’s also much better because you can heat it (wow!), it’s suitable for rainy conditions (YES!), it can hold way more books so were not constantly reloading it, and you don’t have to pull out those heavy carts to get adult books.  I also love it because you can drive it.

It’s great except for one remaining flaw in this whole system.  Yep, I still have to be at risk of being mauled by books we’ve picked up on the way home in our family truck.  That also adds up to the storage unit overflowing.  It’s only got room for about 20 more boxes, 30 at most.  Then the weekend comes, we give away a bunch and a little space will open up.

OK, my dad has a phase 3 for the bookmobile.  He is going to go full-time with it.  It’s AWESOME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  He thinks he can make it even better for everyone.  Personally I like it because I won’t have to go to after-school care and get to go straight home instead. YYYYYYYYYYYYYYEEEEEEEEEEEEEEESSSSSSSSSSSS!!!!!!!!  After this, my main point is to express how awesome and successful the new bookmobile is.

Signed,

Edgerrin Weaver, VOLUNTEER

Wow, what a gift!  Thanks to an introduction by our good friend Ed Buonaccorsi of the city of Santa Rosa, we were able to get together with Tomas Tomas, Inc President Tom Sawyer and make good things happen.  Tomas Tomas (tomastomas.org) builds libraries for children in Mexico in a way that deeply involves the local residents.  Tom had already collected a sizable cache of books for his next project when he was forced to change methods of getting books to the library.  This allowed him to offer the Free Bookmobile nearly 3,000 titles, mostly for children, and all in Spanish!

We had been struggling to find books en español for the Latino families we serve – this fits the bill wonderfully.  Huge thanks to Tom and to Matthew Gollub of Tortuga Press (tortugapress.com), one of his partners who supplied 1,000 copies of the beautiful picture book “Tío Culebra”.  We now have a big shelf in the new vehicle dedicated to Spanish titles, available now wherever we set anchor and throw open the doors…

Always happy to do our part, the Free Bookmobile is ready to put any holiday gifts you may not need or want to good use.  Rather than store them, re-gift them to us!  We will use them in a raffle or silent auction to generate needed funds for operation of the Bookmobile, and to help our parent organization, the Literary Arts Guild.  Gift certificates or gift cards are great, as are any other new items with ‘curb appeal’  :)

This is also a terrific chance to see the new Free Bookmobile in action, and to come aboard and select a book for yourself.  The party will be held in front of the Finley Community Center in Santa Rosa on Sunday, January 23rd from 1 – 3:30 Pm.  Just park in the main lot off 2060 West College Avenue and walk over to the Bookmobile on the building’s front entrance circular driveway.  We look forward to meeting you and giving you the tour of our new shelves!

The Press Democrat ran a very nice story about us on the cover of their January 1 print edition Empire section.  In this case the main photo was worth more than 1,000 words: Edgerrin Weaver was carrying a box of Spanish-language books that must have cumulatively comprised millions of words!  In fact there were three photos, including one of the fabled rig itself, which should help folks find us in their favorite Sonoma County town.

The article detailed the acquisition of our new vehicle, the Free Bookmobile philosophy, and explained how the public can help with donations.  The online version can be found here:

http://www.pressdemocrat.com/article/20101231/ARTICLES/101239920

Our good friend Rayne Wolfe has brought good tidings of our new vehicle to the people via the Petaluma Patch hyper-local website.  Patch describes itself as a community-specific news and information platform dedicated to providing comprehensive and trusted local coverage for individual towns and communities.  We appreciate that they are apparently the first outlet to pick up the story of our acquisition and expansion of service.  They also posted some great pictures from our recent events.  Follow this link:

http://petaluma.patch.com/articles/deck-the-halls-with-wall-to-wall-books

Eagle-eyed supporters may notice that Rayne was in fact the very first reporter to cover the Free Bookmobile, in the Press Democrat community section, way back when it was just an idea and a few boxes of donated books.  Her passionate support led to the donation of the trailer that became the original Free Bookmobile.  Thanks, Rayne!

With our dream bookmobile listed for sale in Kentucky, all we had to do was figure out how we were going to pay for it and how we were going to get it home!  You know, just the little details.  Fortunately, a call to our friend Sharon Bard at Bread for the Journey Sebastopol put us in touch with Miguel Ruelas, Director of Philanthropic Services at Community Foundation Sonoma County.  The Community Foundation strenghtens local communities through effective philanthropy and civic engagement by making grants to fund important needs.

After reviewing our proposal, Miguel spoke to donors on our behalf and secured assistance from three very generous parties: the Julia L. Grant Donor Advised Fund, the Bard Family Fund, and an anonymous donor.  These grants closed a substantial gap in our ability to close this deal and bring a vastly improved Free Bookmobile to the county.  We heartily welcome these kind donors and Miguel aboard!

As for the trip from Kentucky to California, it was smooth as silk.  We were fortunate to be warmly hosted by previous owner Bobby Hale and his family after a cross-country flight, and the vehicle brought us back home in four days of dedicated driving duty.  The weather, the roads, the vehicle, and the company were outstanding.  It was a charmed voyage we will never forget.

We did it!  We finally did it!!  And by we, I mean a whole bunch of caring, committed persons and organizations.  After about a year of fundraising, and some last-minute assistance from Miguel Ruelas at the Community Foundation (see next post), we were able to close a deal on a bookmobile up for sale in Pilgrim, Kentucky.  These vehicles don’t come around very often – perhaps we see one per month come up for sale nationwide, and most are too big, too old, or way too expensive for our purposes.

This one is essentially ideal.  It’s a custom-built Moroney Bookmobile, crafted from a Freightliner chassis, Cummins turbo-diesel engine, and Allison transmission.  It features oak shelving and skylights in addition to deep-cycle battery power for our electrical needs.  It’s a 24′ beauty: big enough for lots of books and patrons, compact enough to maneuver around our tight rural backroads.  It will need some additional modifications but the base model is a dream come true.  Bonus: only 30K miles on this motor and tranny.  They’re not even broken in yet!  This baby should serve the people of Sonoma County for many years to come.  We we’re able to give it a test run in Monte Rio and Geyserville last weekend.  The rain started coming down and we were still open for business!  And the people kept coming!  Woo-hoo!  Pictures can be found via our 2010 Photos web page.

We have lots of folks to thank for helping make this purchase a reality.  Mostly we want to thank everyone who has stopped to pick up a book, and then told a friend about what we’re doing.  Our success has a lot to do with these personal recommendations, these recognitions of the value of neighbors helping neighbors.  The model is as old as human beings themselves, and we’re just happy to be a part of it.  We we’re also very pleased to just receive our first inquiry from another county about replicating our type of service…