Bookmobile News

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…