Bookmobile News

We are so grateful for Codding Foundation’s dedicated support of our children’s services! Their partnership with the Free Bookmobile dates back to 2012 and has helped us bring our early literacy outreach to many more eager young minds than would otherwise have been possible. We are especially excited about this 2016 program year grant, much of which is earmarked for our work with 0 – 5 year-olds and is thus eligible for multiplication through available matching funds.

Established in 1961 as part of Hugh Codding’s legacy, the Codding Foundation has consistently supported local agencies that help Sonoma County youth and families. President Connie Codding has been very active in local philanthropy for a number of years, which includes service on the boards of PDI Surgery Center, Planned Parenthood Shasta Pacific Board of Advocates in Sonoma County, Sonoma Paradiso Foundation and the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at Sonoma State University. Thank you, Connie, for all you do for the community, and especially for helping us keep reading fun and engaging for Sonoma County’s youth!

What a powerful force for good! Thanks to Speedway Motorsports Sonoma Chapter, in 2016 the Free Bookmobile will be able to reach more young children with great new books than ever before. The impressive Speedway group has demonstrated strong growth in fundraising and giving across the United States, with eight chapters that offered up a total of $2.9 million in support to worthy non-profits this year. Their mission remains true to the ideals it was founded upon in 1982: To care for children in educational, financial, social and medical need in order to help them lead productive lives.

We are very grateful that our local chapter’s board is excited about what we do, made clear by the increase in this second-year grant. When the Free Bookmobile visits preschools, toddler programs, and child development centers, we take extra time to engage the kids before offering the books. Our driver librarian explores a story with the children, often a non-fiction book about nature, animals, and the world around them. He shares his experiences with the natural world and encourages the little ones to do the same. Then every child climbs aboard the bookmobile to choose three books to take home and read with their families. This crucially builds home libraries and benefits others in the household. Thank you, Speedway Children’s Charities, for helping us boost this successful model!

We are thrilled to continue our partnership with Healdsburg Forever.org to bring terrific books to young and old alike throughout Healdsburg and Geyserville! This dedicated group was formerly known as the Community Foundation Healdsburg Area Fund and hopes that their new name will help “simplify how they are found in the digital world, seen and understood”. They are still very much affiliated with that stalwart of local non-profit support, Community Foundation Sonoma County.

Healdsburg Forever.org are passionate about leveraging their fund to bring valuable services directly to the residents of the region. This 5th-straight-year grant for the Free Bookmobile makes a powerful statement about their belief in literacy outreach, as well as in the need to support small organizations with operational funding. We are grateful to both this hard-working board of directors and the many donors who have brought the Healdsburg Forever.org endowment up to over $1 million in a relatively short time. For more information please click the logo — 100% of donations go directly to the non-profits.

We’ve always held that books are a wonderful repository of cultural wealth. So we were delighted to be approached by long-time supporter and frequent far-east traveler Sharon Bard about a book exchange with a school in the Khovsgol Lake region of Mongolia. We sent three books over and received several in return, some written in Cyrillic, and some in the traditional Mongolian script. These books are now available on board the Free Bookmobile! Here’s a message from the teacher in the town of Khargal:

“I am glad that books arrived and hope some children will enjoy reading them. Books you brought will be read  by my english class students as a self study. I am always happy when native english speakers give opportunity for my students to speak face to face with them. I think this book exchange will bring cultural awareness to children. Thanks for everything again.
With best wishes, Nergui Enebish”

The photos below show the books we sent and then later received, teacher Nergui Enebish and one of her bilingual books, as well as Sharon’s group of Americans in the classroom with local students. Big thanks to Sharon and Nergui for making this exchange possible! We welcome the opportunity to participate in additional book trades in the future. Feel free to be in touch if you are travelling to an unusual foreign land!

Teacher Nergui Enebish and one of her bilingual books

American visitors sit with Mongolian students in Khargal.

Our parent organization, the Sonoma County Public Library Foundation, put together a festive multicultural celebration on October 18 to raise awareness and money for the much anticipated new Roseland library branch by the Dollar Tree on Sebastopol Road. There were a host of fun activities, refreshments, mechanical bull rides…and of course fabulous free books from the bookmobile!

Due to open in early November, this temporary branch will share space with the local Boys & Girls Club, so library hours will be limited to mornings and Saturdays for the time being. The plan is to eventually raise enough funding to build a permanent structure in a nearby lot that will operate like the other official county branches. It is a desperately needed resource due to the high population density and lower incomes of the area. The plan drawings suggest a beautiful park-like campus with other modern facilities nearby. Thanks to our outreach, local residents already know this is the spot for literacy and love of reading — the Free Bookmobile has been providing regular service to the neighborhood for the past seven years!

We want to extend gratitude to the Bethlehem Foundation for their first-ever investment in the Free Bookmobile’s Senior Services! Their generous support will allow us to enhance and expand our outreach to Sonoma County seniors, citizens who often face significant mobility and financial challenges. The Free Bookmobile is the perfect vehicle, if you will, to address these barriers in one fell swoop — we bring the books directly to senior residences, and our service is completely free of charge!

Bethlehem Foundation was formed in 2013 in a wonderful turn of events related to the Bethlehem Tower low-income senior community on Tupper Street in downtown Santa Rosa. When the 40-year HUD loan that financed that housing was paid off, their Board of Directors was approached by Reiner Communities, a firm that acquires and manages multifamily affordable housing properties, which agreed to complete an extensive renovation and extend the affordability of the project for an additional 55 years. This was a win-win situation. The housing for low-income seniors could remain in place, and proceeds from the sale could fund this new foundation dedicated to promoting an enhanced quality of life for senior adults residing in Sonoma County.

On behalf of the many additional elders who will now receive the dignity and cultural inclusion of great books delivered to their doorsteps, we thank Bethlehem Foundation and hope that this is the beginning of a productive long-term relationship!

With an inspiring endorsement of the quality of our children’s services, Petaluma Community Foundation has renewed its support of the Free Bookmobile’s visits to Petaluma’s kids in need. This year witnesses the tightening of their Collaboration for Youth At-Risk around key organizations Mentor Me, Committee on the Shelterless (COTS), Boys & Girls Clubs of Southern Sonoma County, and the Free Bookmobile.

One of the Collaboration’s methods will be to utilize COTS’ and Boys & Girls Club’s well-established community networks to help find more volunteers for Mentor Me, which has a long waiting list of kids who are desperately seeking mentors to make a positive impact in their lives. As well, PCF Executive Director Marilyn Segal will lead the other agency heads toward supporting new Boys & Girls Club CEO Robert Marcus as he seeks to enhance his program services. And the Free Bookmobile will continue to promote literacy and love of reading by offering its high quality books to participant children and families at all three of these partners’ facilities.

A big thank you to Petaluma Community Foundation not only for their financial support, but for their leadership in bringing the best of Petaluma together to deliver even more value to the community!

One of the Free Bookmobile’s newest sponsors, Speedway Children’s Charities (SCC), will be Rockin’ for the Kids at its first annual charity concert on Monday, August 24, at Lagunitas Brewing Company in Petaluma. This festive evening, which kicks off the Verizon IndyCar Series championship weekend at Sonoma Raceway, will feature live music from the Bay Area’s premier party band, Wonderbread 5, plus great food and Lagunitas beer. The best part? All proceeds benefit Sonoma County youth groups through SCC, which has distributed more than $4.8 million dollars locally since 2001!

For just $50 you can enjoy a live show by Wonderbread 5, and a Lombardi’s BBQ chicken dinner. Don’t miss your chance to rock out for a good cause on Monday, August 24, from 5:30 – 8:30 Pm at Lagunitas Brewing Company (1280 N. McDowell Boulevard, Petaluma). Please see the flyer below and click here to get tickets!

We are thrilled to announce the renewal of major operational funding by the Ernest L. and Ruth W. Finley Foundation! Since 2012, their support has been fundamental to the execution of our important mission: Promoting literacy and love of reading by giving away high quality books throughout Sonoma County, especially seeking to serve children and seniors living in rural and low-income areas.

The Finley Foundation has long been a tremendous force behind countless community benefit programs and facilities throughout the region. We very much appreciate not only the opportunity that Finley funding provides us to reach those who are challenged for access to books, but as well the strong statement of support for literacy and education that their grant represents. Thank you!

It’s that time of the year again, when the Free Bookmobile is hard at work helping vulnerable children avoid the loss in literacy skills that can accompany the summer break. And hard at work behind the scenes are our friends at United Way of the Wine Country, who have once again partnered with Exchange Bank to collect high quality children’s books to boost our efforts. This is a great time to help your kids evaluate their collections and decide which books they have outgrown or won’t read again. Please bring them to us! There are lots of young minds out there eager to discover new books to read, eager to keep up their educational growth. Youngsters who can’t afford to shop at bookstores and from families that don’t prioritize trips to the library.

Participating is easy: just pack up your contributions (banker’s boxes are best) and bring them to ANY Exchange Bank location in Sonoma County during business hours. There are clearly marked bins designated for United Way in each lobby, or you can tell any of the staff that your books are for the summer children’s book drive. ALL donated titles will come to the Free Bookmobile, to make sure our shelves are full of the best the community has to offer. We are already underway on a big outreach schedule — we promise to get your books into the hands of those who need them most!