Bookmobile News

The Free Bookmobile crew was thrilled to attend the Cesar Chavez Health Fair at Roseland Elementary School yesterday. We had a great spot up front and it didn’t take any coaxing to get the children to come see what we had on offer. In addition to our usual rolling carts and the Kids Klub inside the trailer, a couple of big tables displayed our Scholastic-style books (without spines) for all to browse. These were a huge hit. The adults, too, were finding lots to get excited about on the shelves. After four hours we had given away over one thousand books! This was easily our biggest event to date and we celebrated by driving to Cotati to give away more books. Good thing we loaded up the Suburban with lots of extras.

Though most of the Latino children selected books in english, our small supply of Spanish titles proved very popular as well. We continue to search out steady sources for these, especially for monolingual adults, and would greatly appreciate any leads. Do you know where we might pick up free Spanish-language books?

Many thanks to Kristen Mowers and the entire CalServes organization for a wonderfully organized Fair. There was lots to see and learn about, and Edgerrin and Sylvan (the Weaver Boys!) had a great time cruising around during their breaks from helping people at the ‘mobile. We look forward to joining this wonderful community event again next year.

A huge milestone has been reached as we enter into a major partnership with the Literary Arts Guild (LAG), producers of the annual Sonoma County Book Festival. New Director Melissa Kelley and board member Karen Petersen feel strongly that LAG will benefit from the Bookmobile’s outreach activities, and we have already benefited from their expertise and local network of supporters. In addition, LAG has become fiscal agent to the Bookmobile, bringing us under their non-profit umbrella. Donations to our cause are now tax-deductible!

This allows us to apply for grants, foundation funds, and corporate sponsorship that would otherwise be off-limits. Melissa has been hard at work identifying appropriate avenues for both publicity and fundraising for the Bookmobile. She is creative and fun to work with. Our first goal is to purchase or otherwise acquire a larger vehicle, such as a delivery-style truck. With a bigger ‘mobile we can offer patrons a much larger selection of books, indoor browsing on rainy days, and a more frequent event schedule. We are currently limited to weekend give-aways because I work another job weekdays, and it would be imprudent to ask volunteers to haul the heavy book carts up and down the current ramp setup.

To learn more about LAG’s Book Festival, where thousands of readers meet dozens of authors, please visit: http://socobookfest.org. We are having a delightful FUNdraiser at Cinnabar Theater to support the Festival – a special presentation of Mark Twain’s comedy “Is He Dead?” There will be wines, cheeses, and an ‘everybody wins’ auction. Check out http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/99356 for more details, and I hope to see you there!

Call it batting 1.000, going one-for-one from the line, or whatever metaphor suits you best – the Sonoma County Free Bookmobile is ecstatic to announce that it is a proud recipient of a mini-grant from The Big Read program! The Big Read is an initiative of the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) designed to restore reading to the center of American culture. Sonoma County is one of hundreds of communities across the United States that will participate in The Big Read this year, in which adults and teens will be invited to join together to read Mark Twain’s classic, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer.

More specifically, the Bookmobile will, beginning in March, include a “Mark Twain Exchange” section in its trailer. We will invite members of the public to donate works by Mark Twain, including Tom Sawyer, and we’ll encourage visitors to the Bookmobile to check out this featured author. We will also include reader’s guides and audio guides in this section. So now the question to ask yourself is, what Mark Twain material do you have that others might appreciate? Our donation centers are standing by, and you can always come bring us books at our scheduled give-away events as well.

This is the first grant we have applied for so it is a grand morale boost to have been chosen for an award. In fact we are slated to receive almost triple what we asked for, in recognition of what we can provide in support of the goals of The Big Read. We need to extend special thanks to Melissa Kelley of the Sonoma County Literary Arts Guild for encouraging us to pursue this grant. Melissa has also been a great help in connecting us with other like-minded folks around the county, and you’ll be hearing more about her support of the Bookmobile soon.

More details about The Big Read and examples of Big Read projects can be found at www.neabigread.org or www.bigreadsonoma.com. The NEA presents The Big Read in partnership with the Institute of Museum and Library Services and in cooperation with Arts Midwest. Locally, The Big Read is organized by Public Broadcaster KRCB FM Radio 91 and Television Channel 22.

It is with great pleasure that I have been introduced to Paul Rippert by mutual friend and Bookmobile donor Shannon Trayle. Shannon has been a terrific volunteer for COTS at the Mary Isaak Center shelter in Petaluma, where I met her, and quickly became enthusiastic about what the Bookmobile is doing with literacy outreach. She pitched the idea of hosting a drop-off box to her friend Paul, and he graciously agreed. The box has just been set in place and book donations are now accepted at his cylinder head specialty shop – Paul’s Empire Head Shop & Engine Supply. The location is very convenient to downtown Santa Rosa: it’s a bright blue building just off West Third Street (and easily visible from it) near the freeway. The address is 112 Roberts Avenue, and the phone is 546-4324.

An exciting aspect of this location is that it boasts a large mail slot next to the front door. I mean this is a serious slot, and could probably accommodate even the latest Clancy thriller. With the drop box positioned on the other side, we can accept donations here 24 hours a day, 7 days a week!

So don’t forget to tell your friends how easy it is to get books to us now. All four of our drop-off locations are listed on our “Donate Books” page, which is accessible through our “Help Us!” page.

On sitting down to write an article for a local newsletter, I realized that we didn’t yet have a formal mission statement. It’s easy to tell people what we do when they are standing in the midst of free books on display, and in fact one of my favorite questions is: “How does this work?” (My favorite answer is: “You find something you like and take it home.”) It is a bit more challenging to describe the project when we aren’t on location but of course this is very important. Spreading awareness of the Free Bookmobile has made us many new friends and volunteers. In the interest of keeping this momentum building, I am proud to unveil our mission statement:

The Sonoma County Free Bookmobile promotes literacy and love of reading by giving away high quality books to persons throughout Sonoma County. On a mission of outreach, the Free Bookmobile especially seeks to serve children and senior citizens living in rural and low-income areas.

Whaddya think? Does it capture the magic? As always, feedback is welcome!

In the interest of tuning our efforts and learning to describe what we do, it’s helpful to occasionally look back at what we’ve accomplished. The end of the year seems like a good marker, so let’s review.

We’ve been giving away books for just over five months, beginning on July 26, 2009. Including yesterday’s fun in the Graton and Larkfield sun, we’ve hosted a total of 31 events in 27 unique locations around the county, giving away a total of 5,495 books to 1,535 different persons! This includes 558 children and 365 seniors.

We didn’t set goals for these initial months but suffice it to say that the results have handily exceeded our expectations. We are so very grateful for the support that made it happen. To all you kind souls out there who took the time to find a better home for your books – thank you. Your donations are the life blood of this effort. If only you could see the smiles you create and hear the happy songs you inspire (yes, some patrons walk away singing). To all our volunteers and financial supporters who share themselves for the sake of the project – thank you. We could not have come half as far without your generosity.

Our only disappointments were a couple of events that were canceled (or cut short) due to rain. With that in mind, we are collecting donations toward the purchase of an enclosed bookmobile, perhaps in the style of a ‘walk-through’ delivery truck. The social atmosphere of outdoor book-browsing has been superb, so we will continue to bring the rolling carts along whenever possible. But a truck will allow us to serve the good people of Sonoma County under cover whenever the weather turns lively and the sun sets early.

Onward then, into 2010. Won’t you please come along with us?

Thanks to the kindness of our neighbors, the Laszlo family, we have to date enjoyed the use of a garage for our book storage. It was a very convenient arrangement, as we could pull the Bookmobile right up to load for the day’s giveaway events. It was not, however, a particularly dry arrangement, as the structure sits over gravel with no formal floor. As the air become quite moist this fall, boxes began sucking up water and that spelled trouble for the books. The short-term answer was to keep them moving – give them away! We’ve been doing a decent job of that and at the same time, have been investigating more peace of mind.

Fortunately Ruth Robeson of Episcopal Senior Communities (ESC) got in touch to indicate that they would like to continue to support our mission. ESC are the good folks who purchased our rolling carts for us back in July. They are now stepping up with a commitment to rent a storage container for our donations. We can keep the books much drier in this unit, and well organized as it will have lots of floor space. And it will be just as convenient, placed along the driveway near the Bookmobile’s home.

Many thanks to Ruth and all of the service-minded individuals at ESC. Though their generosity will allow us to receive larger deliveries of donated books, our mantra will remain the same: Keep them moving – give them away!

Ha! We’re not really going to trademark the title because that wouldn’t be in the spirit of sharing. And the spirit of sharing is something our newest dedicated volunteer embodies. Carrie Hess is the head of the children’s programs at COTS (Committee on the Shelterless) where I work, and has dived headlong into service, yet again, with the Bookmobile project.

She brings something unique to the show. Claiming to be shy, Carrie has been a terrific host to our patrons as she accompanies us to many of our events. She often remembers what she has seen while helping load the trailer, and can steer hopeful browsers to the right spot. In Sebastopol, she directed a gentleman to a particular translation of Siddhartha for which he had been searching for 21 years!

Children are near and dear to her heart. She has a warm, gentle way with them, and they listen when she recommends books in the Kids Klub. She also makes sure that every child goes away with a beautiful hand-crafted bookmark. Carrie makes these special designs at home from her bountiful crafting supplies. Many feature fancy textures or three-dimensional creatures.

Be sure to check out our latest photo pages for shots of Carrie and her bookmarks in action. We have two new galleries: one from our first Roseland adventure, and another that documents our last three months of travels.

Happy – and safe – Holidays to you and yours!

Once we heard that the county library system had planned a new branch in Roseland before the budget cuts hit, our interest in the area was confirmed. Normally we would consider residents of urban areas to have ready access to libraries but let’s face it: low-income families often don’t have an easy time getting around town. Without a place that’s really convenient to reach, plenty of kids will be going without.

Enter the Sonoma County Free Bookmobile. We scoured the event listings for likely spots and decided to visit a craft fair at the Southwest Youth Center on West Avenue. The attendance there, however, was disappointing for our purposes; fortunately we had spotted a flyer for a community Christmas party planned for that same day at the Roseland Fire Department. We popped over to Burbank Avenue and found the organizers to be warm in their welcome. They estimated that hundreds of kids would be interested in the books and they were right! Sometimes these things just come together, and it seems the Bookmobile is often blessed with a little luck just when we need it.

It turned out to be our best outreach to children yet – we gave away 423 books to 136 boys and girls. Many took some for their brothers and sisters. It was a delightful day, made even better by our introduction to Jo Anne Cohn of the Southwest Area Community Advisory Board, and Ed Buonaccorsi of the Santa Rosa Recreation, Parks & Community Services Department. No doubt we can continue our work in the area by partnering with these new friends on future events.

As you can see from our schedule (don’t forget you can click the link below the “Recent Events” list to see all of our past giveaways), we’ve been gleefully busy. We also have some great stuff in the works behind the scenes, including sponsorship by a new group, renewed commitment from current partners, and a fabulous new volunteer named Carrie Hess. Carrie has been a huge help at many of our latest stops, including the generous donation of custom bookmarks she makes for the kids. We’ll get some pictures up soon of these beautiful works of art, as well as details of the building of the Bookmobile support team. So, as always, stay tuned…

Part of our mission is to bring books to seniors and others who “don’t get around much anymore”. This all came to life last month as we visited Fitch Mountain Terrace, a Burbank Housing apartment complex for seniors and the disabled in Healdsburg. Though the manager had only received our fliers to post a few days prior, the welcome was joyful and the word soon spread that we were in the parking lot. This was definitely a discerning group of readers, taking their time to find the right volumes. They were also a very generous group, bringing donations down from their units for us to give away at other locations.

From there we traveled north to Healdsburg Senior Living, a convalescent facility that had expressed interest in our program after a visit from bookmobile booster Mike Berry. In fact, there was one fellow in particular who caught wind of our plans and was anxious to comb our shelves for cookbooks. It was a really nice event, with elders browsing from both foot and wheelchair. An unanticipated bonus was our ability to serve the staff there. Several individuals, from program managers to the chaplain, picked up new reading material, and some even grabbed stacks for their kids at home.

We are excited to continue to work with groups like Burbank Housing and Petaluma Ecumenical Properties to visit their senior sites. As well we would like to identify convalescent facilities and other senior meeting spots, especially in rural areas. Won’t you please help us by sending in suggestions? This is how so much great information has already come our way.

This Saturday we will be giving away books to the Handicapables group at the Church of the Roses in Santa Rosa. These are individuals with disabilities who gather monthly for lunch and social support. I wouldn’t have known about them had it not been for a tip from a co-worker who sang for them in October…

Be in touch soon!