After partnering with Write to Read BC, the isolated community of Lax Kw’alaams conceived of a community library that meets their literacy and learning needs.
Another Write to Read BC partner, Mission Rotary Club, asked its community to contribute $5,000 to the project, and then doubled that with a $5,000 grant. The Rotary Club volunteers also set up the library in October.
This new library in Lax Kw’alaams, formerly known as Port Simpson, has shelves of books to read, comfortable seating, and computers for remote attendance in courses and conferences in its learning centre.
Shelves of books in Lax Kw’alaams library.Seating and more shelves of books in the library in Lax Kw’alaams, BC.
In her 2013 annual statement, Judith Guichon, lieutenant-governor of BC, said she will continue to build on the literacy program developed by Steven Point, the preceding lieutenant-governor of BC.
Point developed the Write to Read BC project by partnering with several Rotary Clubs in the province.
Steven Point (middle) pictured in a newly installed library. Point was lieutenant-governor of BC from September 2007 to November 2012.
Throughout his career Gordon Yusko worked in and with libraries and the communities they serve, in most regions of BC. For decades, he has volunteered in community-led libraries. He was also Program Administrator at Simon Fraser University’s Indigenous Student Centre.
As a retiree, through Write to Read BC, Yusko continues to work for libraries in isolated communities across the province. He supports the project’s co-leads, Bob Blacker and Dr Shirley-Pat Gale, as they partner with First Nations to install indigenous-led libraries.
Before that, from 2012 to 2019, Yusko served on a program that supports Indigenous community efforts to preserve records that document cultural and social history, as well as Indigenous languages. By 2019 over 35 Indigenous communities had received training and financial assistance through this work. This was a collaboration with Barber Learning Centre, UBC iSchool, Museum of Anthropology, and similar programs in Washington state, USA.
In one of his earliest jobs, Yusko’s work was commended in Hansard, the BC legislature’s official record of its proceedings, for library-based research work for ministers, the press gallery, and policy researchers.
Yusko also helped guide a NOIIE funding partnership for dozens of teachers of kindergarten to grade 12 students. NOIIE, or Network of Inquiry and Indigenous Education, supports further education of Indigenous students in culturally sensitive ways.
Write to Read BC’s work has been similarly supportive by equipping the libraries it installs with learning centres that can offer remote attendance at courses and conferences, online.
Bob Blacker helped drive the success of Write to Read BC, and is now a co-lead with Dr Shirley-Pat Gale. Blacker is also a retired inspector of New Westminster Police and a longtime Rotary Club volunteer.
Blacker first joined a Rotary Club in 1996. He has since served as Club President and, in 2008-2009, as district governor for Rotary District 5040. This district consists of 54 Rotary Clubs across BC.
In 1998, Blacker became an Honorary Aide de Camp to Steven Point, then lieutenant-governor of BC. In 2007, Point and Blacker started working together to get books into isolated Indigenous communities across BC. This led to the Write to Read BC project.
Bob Blacker is the recipient of Queen Elizabeth II’s Golden Jubilee and Diamond Jubilee medals, and a vice-regal commendation for his work with Government House (BC) and First Nation communities.
In 2012, Blacker was left to carry on as the project leader when Point returned to the Bench as a Provincial Court Judge, having completed his term as lieutenant governor of BC. Both men had high hopes for the project, but never dreamed that Write to Read BC would be as successful as it is today.
Dr Shirley-Pat Gale is a passionate literacy advocate and is co-lead of Write to Read BC with with Bob Blacker.
Driven by an insatiable curiosity and a passion for changing the world around her, Gale is committed to social-action literacy initiatives and community-development innovation in isolated BC communities, both indigenous and non-indigenous.
She’s so energetic that Steven Point, the 28th lieutenant-governor of BC, dubbed Gale “the original Champion spark plug.”
Gale has built strong and meaningful relationships with each Indigenous community or Nation that she has had the privilege and honour of working with across the Pacific Northwest, as well as with non-Indigenous organizations, communities, and governments.
Gale has an interdisciplinary and multicultural education, with a doctorate in Canadian studies, a master in education in leadership, and a bachelor of arts in history and classical languages and literature. She’s taught in China and Japan, and taught a pre-trades program focused on trades and literacy for Indigenous learners in Canada. Currently, Gale is a comprehensive community-planning mentor working with Indigenous communities and is the sole proprietor of her own consulting company.
