As I previously blogged about (here https://kerryedwyer.com/2015/07/10/one-book-at-a-time/, here https://kerryedwyer.com/2015/08/20/power-of-social-media-kindness-of-strangers-500-books/, here https://kerryedwyer.com/2015/09/25/open-for-business/ and here https://kerryedwyer.com/2015/11/01/the-kindness-of-strangers-part-ii/), my volunteer project in the Galapagos is to create and maintain a bilingual library for the Tomas de Berlanga school. In 8 months, we have made a lot of progress.

This is what the library looked like when I started the project in June:

Dumping Ground

We built and unveiled a new library with 900 books on September 24, 2015:

The New Stacks – Room to Grow!

And closed the library for the school year last Friday:

Helena and Kerry Finishing Up for the Year

Spanish, English Nonfiction and English Advanced Level

Beautiful, Organized Library!

Checking Whose Books Weren’t Returned!

English Books

Fabulous Volunteer About two weeks after the library opened, the school welcomed a volunteer from Germany, the amazing Helena. In addition to being hard working, fluent in English, friendly and kind, Helena is mature beyond her years. Helena’s help was crucial as we embarked on changing the school culture from one with limited reading and no accountability for the books to one with a fully functional library. Between the two of us, we were able to keep up with the indexing and labeling of donated books, have the library open 3 days a week and provide set library times for all of the classes.

Engrossed (Most of Them)

The Lovely Helena

What Happens Next?

Last Story Hour

Library Accomplishments In the 4 months the library has been open, we:

1. More than doubled the number of books in the library to 2,075 books.  1,790 books are in English, 267 books are in Spanish and 18 books are bilingual.
2. Manually checked out 972 books to students and 115 books to teachers.
3. Held story hours with pre-school, 1st, 2nd and 3rd grade classes.
4. Increased the number of teachers using the library from 2 to 12, including all of the English teachers.
5. Trained the students on proper library conduct: checking out and returning books, shelving books, appropriate book handling.

Fundraising In addition to the on-site work, we continued working to obtain books and other resources for the library. In November, through the efforts of Hector Viela and Amy Torres, we started a GoFundMe campaign that raised $725. https://www.gofundme.com/wa6skk5z. We have spent about 1/2 of the funds to buy library materials and to mail books that Amy continues to collect for us in the US. The remaining funds will be used to build seating for the library once we have enough raised to commission some tables and benches.

Book Donations We continue to receive book donations from friends in the US. Thank you Tanya Oemig and Candy Underwood for mailing books to the Galapagos! Matt and I also brought back 100 pounds of books from a weekend trip to visit our family in NYC. Thanks to Mick, Andy, Tom and Sue for collecting these books (and Mary Ziino and Bridget Paul for their donations) and bringing them to us in NYC. Galapagos visitor Alex Doubek kindly brought some books from his collection when Mick put us in touch before his trip. Amy Torres also was able to deliver another 84 books to us via Pablo Weaver and his students from the University of La Verne who came on a study trip to the Galapagos. Amy is visiting us again this summer, this time bringing her daughter, more books and her never-ending support!

University of La Verne Book Mules!

Books!

Does Kieran Weigh More than the Books?

Welcome and Thank You!

Gorgeous, New, Donated Books!

We also received donations from the school community. A school parent and labeling volunteer, Jessi Pfeltz Mahauad, donated 50 books when her family returned to the US. A 6th grade student, Lymin, took it upon herself to donate books she had read or outgrown, and additional parents have donated some books from their collections as well.

Lindblad Expeditions-National Geographic Bring a Book Program Visitors from the Lindblad Expeditions-National Geographic ships are invited to visit the school as one of their on-shore expeditions. Every time Matt led a tour, the tourists bemoaned the fact that they hadn’t brought books to donate to the school. Some were kind enough to mail books after their trip. The Lindblad Expeditions-National Geographic fund is also a generous donor to the school via student scholarships and an invaluable school supporter. Through conversations spearheaded by school parent and Lindblad employee Emma Ridley, we launched a “Bring a Book” program for Lindblad Expeditions-National Geographic travelers. Those who wish to support our library can bring a book or two of their choice or select books from an Amazon wish list (https://www.amazon.com/gp/registry/wishlist/2OPJUUA6G2N4D). I constantly update the list to reflect the gaps in our collection as well as specific requests by students and teachers (although I nixed one student’s request for a World of Minecraft manual).

While our other book collection efforts have yielded great books, mailing books is cost prohibitive and takes several months, while transporting large quantities of books from the US is inconvenient and burdensome for the traveler. Through the Bring a Book program, folks can bring one or two books, nothing onerous, and we get a steady stream of needed resources. In the first 2 months of the program we received 370 books! When the library opened, our limited book supply meant that students could only take out one book at a time per language and teachers were limited in the books they could check out for classroom use. Due to the new books, we will be able to increase the checkout limit and provide more books to the teachers.

Community Value While the library patrons are limited to the school community, the impact goes beyond our students. One 6th grade student consistently took out a picture book in Spanish to take home to read to his younger sister. A teacher also checked out books to read to her young child. It is exciting that the resources are being used to instill a love of reading in children who are too young to attend school.

Thank you to everyone who has supported the library project. It has been exactly what I need. I find island living extremely challenging: isolating, limited and lonely at times. Reading is my passion and to turn that into an on-going volunteer project that engages me is a win-win for me and the school.