Sustainability has become more and more important in recent years.
Nowadays everybody tries to reduce their negative impact on the environment;
moreover, with innovative new products such as electric cars, biodegradable necessity
products, and eco-friendly appliances that reduce their energy consumption,
people are totally committed to protect our planet. However, throughout the
semester we have learned that sustainability does not only include
environmental issues but also societal concerns. Hence, a good sustainable
practice is not one that only focuses on natural ecosystems, but one that also
creates value for society. Consequently, for my community project I decided to
volunteer with Friends of the Westfield Memorial Library as to give back to my
own community.
Since I can remember, literature has been one of the pillars of my
life. I love to be able to visit thousand different worlds and to lose myself in
each one of those. My obsession with books probably began due to my father. All
my life my dad suffered from pulmonary emphysema which meant that we had to
spent long periods of time in hospitals. To distract myself from those days, I
used to turn to reading. While discovering Hogwarts, the Middle-earth, or
Narnia, I was not able to fully understand and pay attention to the gravity of
the situation with my dad; hence, I can say that literature help me cope with
my dad’s sickness and long demise. For a child that had to grow knowing her dad
was going to die anytime soon, books became an escape to my reality.
Friends of the Westfield Memorial Library is a 100% volunteer
group that assists the Westfield library community. This non-profit
organization gather funds through membership dues or other methods to be able
to implement programs for our community to enhance peoples’ library experience.
The program I am part of is the Children’s and Teens seasonal book sale. Twice
per year, the Friends (how we call our group between us), gathers books from
donations and then we sell them to obtain money for our different programs. Some
of those programs are zoom meeting readings for children, which was implemented
during the COVID-19 pandemic, or other skill classes like arts and crafts for
kids. My job for the Children’s and Teens seasonal book sale was to drive to
people’s houses and to collect their books for our sale. Also, on April 26th,
I assisted the Friends to organize all the books and categorize them. Furthermore,
I created an excel spreadsheet with each book, age category, topic, and price
for the future sale. To be able to have all the books ready for our book sale,
I have volunteered some Saturday mornings during March and April and will
continue to do so until the sale is over. The children’s book sale will take
place from May 3rd to May 7th. The days I will also be
collaborating with the Friends are April 29th, in which people can
buy books at half-price, and April 30th in which people pay only $8
for a bag full of books.
As I stated before, I believe every kid deserves to have a book;
to have an escape place where to go when their problems are too obtrusive or in
moments of adversity. That’s what I love the most about volunteering with the
Friends, that we not only assist the Westfield library to increase their
services to my community, but we also create programs for children. Sometimes
it is quite difficult to truly understand what is going on in a kid’s mind.
From bullying, to abuse, parental alienation or other problems. Or even to
enjoy themselves. The purpose of the Friends is to create a community where we
can all hang out, enjoy our love for literature, and support one another. Most
important, we want to create an environment for kids to be happy and to assist
them to thrive in life.
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