Friday, May 25, 2012

Creating Hope, Sending Books to Thoreau

On our visit to the Navajo Nation, we stopped in the small town of Thoreau, New Mexico (pop, 1,650) to visit the new library at the Thoreau Community Center. The library was recently established by a Vista volunteer that is spending 2011-2012 there.

The community center was the brain child of a Juliana Ko, who moved to the small town to teach 8th grade math as part of a two-year service commitment. She spotted an abandoned building and went about securing it as a gathering place for local teens. A gathering place was desperately needed to combat the hopelessness that encouraged gang activity. Even worse, the town bore the weight of 15 teen suicides and 90 reported attempts.

Reader to Reader’s Kat Libby made copious notes on all that the library needs. Some of our work will be completing sets of books that are on the shelves. For example, they have only the second book I the Lord of the Rings trilogy.

We look forward to sending hundreds of books to bolster this small library. It’s small, but it’s so necessary, as it’s not the only access to books in the community, it’s all the access point for hope.

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