For minor updates of interest mainly to Write to Read BC teams, communities, and partners.
Need to brighten up your cloudy day? Stop by our Bella Bella library/office and check out this beautiful new mural by Thomas Kero! Photos don’t do it justice. There are so many hidden creatures and special features nestled into the summertime foliage.
Write to Read BC’s 17th library is getting ready for its official opening, after the recent installation of shelves and books by Write to Read BC volunteers.
Preparations involved a trip on the high seas by BC Ferry to the Nanaimo Correctional Centre to pick up furniture build for the library, and a visit to the Write to Read storage locker, provided by U-Lock Storage, to pick up a shipment of books.
The library response team, volunteers Margaret, Carol, Liz, and Marion, made the trip to the Rocky Pines community, sometimes called the Lower Nicola Indian Band, near Merritt, BC, where they coordinated with local volunteers to prepare the furniture, shelves, and books for the library’s opening. Other volunteers later set up the TV and computers for the library’s learning centre, which will offer remote attendance to courses and conferences via Internet.
Still to come is an amazing donation of new Indigenous-authored books from GoodMinds.com. This donation of 1,000 books for readers from pre-schoolers to adults, is an $18,000 gift to the community.
Write to Read BC’s design response team visited the Sxoxomic Community School at Esk’etemc, and ended up designing a library with the kids. Although the students are not designers, they have clear ideas about how to lay out their library.
Our co-lead Dr Shirley-Pat Gale heard from new elementary school’s principal that the school does not yet have a library.
Gale, brought in Write to Read BC’s design response team, architect Scott Kemp, and co-lead Bob Blacker. The team mixed with grade 7 students, and magical things happened.
During an amazing lunch-and-design session with the kids, the team designed its layout, including where the new shelving would be placed. The shelves will be made by the Nanaimo Correctional Centre. All that remains is for library response team lead Margaret Fletcher to visit the school to review what books they’d like, and then the school can contact our Aboriginal book distributor GoodMinds.com and Jeff Burnham to purchase the aboriginal authored books that will make their library suit the community.
This was Write to Read BC’s first design session with students from an elementary school, and it was a success.
While attending a Rotary Club leadership conference, Write to Read BC co-lead Dr Shirley-Pat Gale was interviewed by Rotarian David Mangs about her work with libraries, literacy, and Write to Read BC.
During the video interview, Gale told the story of the child who inspired her to start providing not only books but spaces for libraries in isolated BC communities.
Interviewer David Mangs is a past district governor of Rotary district 7890. Mangs begins the interview by explaining the goals of Rotary Clubs, and by introducing Gale.
Spurred by the Write to Read BC library projects in Toosey and Stone, Indigenous community Nemiah Valley, has approached us about a community library.
Nemiah Valley, BC, is home to the Xeni Gwet’in band of the Tsilhqot’in people. This community is on Chilco Lake, a 4½-hour drive from Williams Lake. This has logistical challenges for the project.
Members of the Rotary Club relayed to us that community members are very excited that something like this is available to them.
Dr Shirley-Pat Gale, our co-lead, has made contact with the community, and will help set up an initial meeting in which the community can tell us what they want from a library.
Fort Rupert’s Indigenous community has really wanted an Elders library where Elders can relax, read, and do their crafts. In a visit, Steven Point, governor-general of BC, described the Write to Read project. The community responded positively.
A representative from the Fort Rupert community, along with Brenda Rothwell, the Success By 6 coordinator, are now going to start the process of planning an Elders library with Write to Read BC’s design response team.
Some time ago, the Kwadacha indigenous community in Fort Ware approached Write to Read BC about a library. We can now get a project started with them.
This is because two Rotary Clubs are willing to partner with the community.
Fort Ware is north of Williston Lake, which is a substantial logistical challenge. No provincial highways reach the community, but a logging road extends north from the Prince George region.
Klemtu, BC, an indigenous community in BC’s coastal fjords, has asked to partner with Write to Read BC to work towards a library and cultural centre.
For this project, Write to Read BC has also partnered with the Rotary Club of Saanich.
Our design response team has been invited to the community to meet and start planning the facility with them. Hoping to join us in the first meeting are Brenda Rothwell, Success By 6 coordinator for the area, Steven Point, lieutenant-governor of BC, and members of the Rotary Club of Saanich.
Write to Read BC partner, Nanaimo Correctional Centre, has finished an order of library furniture for the Lax Kw’alaams Tsimshian Academy and Community Library. This shipment of shelves, bound for Metlakatla Pass, is now being trucked to Prince Rupert by project partner, Bandstra Transportation. Bandstra provides Write to Read BC with free trucking.
These shelves follow an earlier shipment in late 2016. The arrival of those shelves were accompanied by Write to Read BC’s library response team and Rotary Club of Mission BC volunteers. Together with Lax Kw’alaams community members and academy librarian Naomi White, they sorted and placed books onto the first batch of shelves.
There were many books left over, and the second furniture shipment to the academy will help get most of those books onto shelves. A third shipment of shelves is scheduled for the end of June 2017. Mission Rotary Club volunteers will pick up the shelving in Nanaimo, drive it to Port Hardy, and then take it to Prince Rupert on the overnight ferry.
Also in June, Write to Read BC will ship four Hewlett Packard all-in-one computers and 4 mini pads (tablets). This will allow the academy to offer remote attendance to courses and conferences, online, from its learning centre.
Once the library response team has finished with the library, and the computers and tablets are installed, the library will be ready for its formal opening ceremony. It’s been operating in Metlakatla since early 2015. It is 11th Write to Read BC library and learning centre.
Just south of Chemainus, BC, is the Indigenous community of Halalt, Lyackson. Write to Read BC learned about this community’s library ambitions when Ada Mawson approached us in January 2017. Ada Mawson is the Success By 6 coordinator for the area, and she accompanied us to a Halalt meeting in March.
There is a definite need for a community library.
We are now working with the community to locate a Britco module for the site. Things are moving very quickly with the community, as they have been committed to make this work and are doing everything that will ensure this will happen.
The Rotary Clubs of Steveston, Chemainus, and Parksville will be partnering on this project.
We expect the library to be ready for opening before the end of the current term of the lieutenant-governor of BC ends in late 2018.
