What better way to kick off National Library Week (April 10-16)
than with Saturday’s
”
Awareness Celebration
”
and Book Fair at Gilroy’s Barnes
&
amp; Noble in support of our local library?
What better way to kick off National Library Week (April 10-16) than with Saturday’s “Awareness Celebration” and Book Fair at Gilroy’s Barnes & Noble in support of our local library?
The festivities for kids and parents will begin at 10am when Diane Elia, the principal at Eliot School, and Mike Nebesnick, principal of El Roble, will be reading their favorite children’s stories. Gondie Chavez, the literacy facilitator, and Brandy Davis, a second grade teacher at Eliot also will be reading, as well as Barb Wells, kindergarten teacher, and Anchella Rengers, third grade teacher at Antonio Del Buono.
They are joining other educators in support of this Saturday’s celebration, which will raise funds to keep our library’s doors open. Fifteen percent of sales at Barnes & Noble (up to $2,000) that day will be donated.
Come meet local authors and local celebrities, including Claudia Salewske, who will be signing her highly popular book on the history of Gilroy.
Mary Ellison, Community Relations Manager, tells me she plans to have balloons, books and festivities for all, including a local band called “Trusting Lucy,” which will entertain starting at 2pm.
Many local teachers, former principals, school board members, members of various community organizations, former librarians (such as Gilroy High’s Carol Smith), and even one San Jose State University English professor have all been giving up their free time night after night for the past few weeks to work the phone tree and rally support for this month’s library measures.
I don’t know if many of you have seen this in action yet, but these volunteers spend three hours a night at Mayor Pinheiro’s office on the corner of First and Church streets, trying to reach as many people as possible.
The concern is that, with the ballot coming by mail and needing to be mailed back, it might be all too easy to misplace these – thinking, “Oh yeah, I’ll get to that,” or mistakenly thinking it’s this week’s junk mail. And then it’s lost.
The ballot will come with a prepaid envelope to make it quick and easy to return, and your vote will help keep our library going. Your votes are crucial on both library measures because in order for B to pass, A must pass.
Our library is part of the Santa Clara County Library system, which is consistently rated one of the top libraries of its size in the country; let’s keep it that way, rather than going the way of my hometown Salinas (the city with the third largest gang problem in the U.S., according to CNN), as they close their library doors after voting no on library funding.
“The library connects us with the insight and knowledge, painfully extracted from nature, of the greatest minds that ever were, with the best teachers, drawn from the entire planet and from all our history, to instruct us without tiring, and to inspire us to make our own contribution to the collective knowledge of the human species.
“I think the health of our civilization, the depth of our awareness about the underpinnings of our culture and our concern for the future can all be tested by how well we support our libraries.” – Carl Sagan, in “Cosmos”
