[kids-lib] Early literacy leaflet and making women cry

[Patrick Goodman]

My apologies. I attached an uneditted PDF of the leaflet. Please use
this attached leaflet if you cannot open the Publisher file.

On Wed, Apr 21, 2010 at 4:23 PM, Patrick Goodman <patrick at jcld.org> wrote:
> Hello Kids-lib,
>
>    For all of you libraries without any early literacy information to
> hand out to parents, here's an easily printable 3-fold leaflet that I
> put together with some big help from the Multnomah Co. website and the
> continued inspiration from those involved in RfHF. I have attached
> both a Publisher and PDF file, so remember to change the info to fit
> your library.
>
> Now on to making women cry...
>
>  At the pinnacle of an extremely rotten week, I was approached by a
> woman from the Early Childhood Education Center in Warm Springs
> Reservation who asked if I could be of any help in trying to collect
> enough books for 120 children to take home for their very own. I had
> recently done my quarterly weed, so I knew that I had a good number of
> fair to low-quality books in relatively fair condition to give to
> them. Upon delivery, I was greeted with a banner stretching across the
> ECE building's entrance that read, "Thank you, Patrick."
>
>  What a rush it was to have this kind of appreciation shown to a
> librarian! Unfortunately, all I could focus on was the quality of the
> books I had just delivered. But as I've stated earlier, it was a
> really rotten week.
>
>  About two days later, I was sorting through the mess that my library
> lovingly calls the 'youth services archives' in the basement of our
> annex, when I stumbled upon a box full of pristine books. Underneath
> that box was another, and another.
>
>  I would have thought that this was some kind of a set-up if I hadn't
> found over 700 t-shirts from SRP's of yore in the same exact area a
> month beforehand. So with the t-shirts in mind, I began digging
> further into the mounds of boxes, discovering 6 more boxes full of
> 'excellent condition' books marked "give-aways," including a horde of
> baby books from a long-dead grant program- a program much like the one
> I've recently been developing and writing grants for.
>
>  Too excited to keep it to myself, I called the woman- lets call her
> Mary- to tell her the good news. I reckoned anyone who'd go out of
> their way to hang a banner for a librarian was more than worthy of
> this literary cache. And this is how the conversation went...
>
> Me: "Hey Mary, did you receive the books that I brought?"
>
> mary: (a bit subdued) "Yes, we did. Thank you very much."
>
> Me: "Great, great. Well, what would you say if I told you I could
> bring you another 60 or so brand new, high quality books to give to
> your kids?"
>
> Mary: "Well...well, I..."
>
> Me: "And how about some free t-shirts? What would you say to 120 free
> t-shirts for the kids?"
>
> Mary: (begins to cry) "Well, Patrick. I'd say that you have a new best friend."
>
>  The whole experience moved me so much, that I did the exact same
> thing for the festivities held here in Madras last weekend. I should
> note that I had my staff stuff each book with an Early Literacy
> leaflet, and had nearly 25 more people than average attend this week's
> morning storytimes; 8 more for evenings.
>
>  I know it sounds like a whole lot of boasting, but this is one of
> those times when you get instant feedback for the job you do as a
> librarian, and I just had to share. So stop listening to the
> stormcrows who cackle on about the death of libraries. As my wise old
> Irish nan used to say, "Keep a stiff upper lip, lad, and put the
> kettle on for some tea when you get the chance."
>
>
> --
> Patrick L. Goodman
> Youth Services Coordinator
> Jefferson Co. Library District
> 241 SE 7th St.
> Madras, OR 97741
> (ph) 541.475.3351
> (f) 541.475.7434
> patrick at jcld.org
>



-- 
Patrick L. Goodman
Youth Services Coordinator
Jefferson Co. Library District
241 SE 7th St.
Madras, OR 97741
(ph) 541.475.3351
(f) 541.475.7434
patrick at jcld.org
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: EL Flyer.pdf
Type: application/pdf
Size: 370841 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <https://omls.oregon.gov/pipermail/kids-lib/attachments/20100421/ea9b562c/attachment.pdf>