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The Alamos Project - Phase I
Biblioteca de los Ninos de Alamos
PICTURES and INFORMATION
THE
LIBRARY PROJECT
THE FIESTA
THE OPENING OF THE LIBRARY
ROBIN'S LOG
In April of 1999, the two Toms took a trip to the
village of Alamos in Mexico to see Tom Sawyer's sponsored child, Marisol Corral. It
was there that the idea of starting a library came to pass. See Origin
for details. They were able to secure a building for
the library from the Alamos school board on September 7, 1999.
Purchasing the Books
As of
January 2000, we raised
$7,170.00 through a play written
by Susan Hunt - produced by Rosemary Ward and by donations from
27 generous donors. Although, we
fell short of our goal of
$10,000, we had
enough funds to purchase and ship
1,100 books from two publishers in
Mexico City. With the help of Dr. Brian Shears, providing us with the
connections to reputable publishers, we were able to purchase books for literature, history
and science, along with dictionaries, atlases, and a set of
encyclopedias - all in Spanish for grades
1 through
12. Both publishers,
Fondo de Cultura
Economica and
SITESA provided generous discounts.
Getting the Books There
The
book shipments arrived in
Obregon and
Alamos in late
December 1999, and are being stored at
FAI headquarters in
Obregon and at their field office in Alamos. FAI has been a tremendous help, they have provided
transportation, language translation, and have opened many doors to
people and resource - thank you FAI.
Setting up the Alamos Library
- March 25th Update
The Tomas Tomas team flew to
Obregon, Mexico
on March 1, 2000
where they were greeted by FAI and then driven
90 miles to the village of
Alamos to
begin setting up the new library called,
"Biblioteca de los Nenos de Alamos." The
library was a wonderful success and FAI and many local people helped in
it's making. We refurbish an older school building, did minor repairs to
walls, painted, put in glass windows, electrical, lighting, and
installed 8 tables
and 42 chairs.
George Shepard from Oregon who is a muralist came to Alamos on his own
ticket and painted
animals and children on the inside walls. We installed 16
bookcase modules and through the tireless efforts
of Robin Flinchum (Tomas Tomas translator), cataloged 937
books including encyclopedias, atlases, and
dictionaries. Much of the
work was done by the children organized by FIA in Alamos, the children
actually got to help in the building of their own library. The library
opened on March 13th with
about 200 children
attending the opening. The superintendent and directors of schools in
Alamos, in conjunction with FAI, put on an educational fiesta with
music, puppet shows, children's dancing and poetry.
We are not sure how it is in other schools in
Mexico, but the elementary schools in Alamos
have no books for students. Only the teachers have books that they teach
from. We met with some of the teachers and suggested that they include
assignments that would require the students to use the library. The
children that attended the opening of the library did not want to leave
the library - that's a good sign!
Thank you all for a great project
We sincerely thank Jorge
Valenzuela, Dora Elia
Garcia, Olivia
Amabizca, Luis and
Ana Leyva,
Emma Michel,
Roseria Cubedo Corral (Maye), and Lupe of FAI for bringing us into their homes,
providing transportation, connections, a place to stay, and for their
never ending work of lovingly helping children. We thank Comex Paint
Company for giving us a great deal on the paint and allowing us to use
their tools. We thank Cuco the brilliant carpenter and cabinet maker for
going the extra mile to get the job done on time. (By the way - Cuco
must be magical - when ever we needed him, he would just show up on a bicycle.)
We thank Juan Zoilo Lopez the director of the school for believing in the
project and Jesus Gil - Superintendent of schools, Professor
Juan Zoilo Lopez, and Professor
Juan Torres for providing the building for the library and the many
wonderful children who helped paint, sort books, assemble lighting and
tables, and move materials from here to there. We also thank our
publishers, Daniel Goldin of Fondo de Cultura Economica and
Jose Ignacio
Echeverria of SITES for
providing generous discounts for the books and Dr. Brian Shears of
Sonoma State University for connecting us to the publishers and helping
in the selection of the books and Laura Goldman of Santa Rosa Junior
College for translating the Alamos Library contract. We also want to
thank the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce of Sonoma County for the article
that eventually connected us with Dr.
Brian
Shears. Many, many thanks to George
Shepard of Hoodriver, Oregon for
traveling all that way to paint murals for the library and Robin
Flinchum of Death Valley, California
for acting as project translator, cataloger, and keeper of the log, and to
Dr. Rosemary Ward for
producing and providing her home as the venue for the play (fund raiser)
and to Wild Child Productions.
We also want to thank Susan Hunt
for writing and directing the play and Brad
Thomsen for recording the play live in Santa Rosa
and to the great actors Sandi
Lacy,
Mary Gannon and Coco
Tanner-Boylan and
the 73
Donors who made it all possible.
How we Spent the Money - March
25th Update
As of March
15, 2000 - out of the $10,026.17
raised:
23.2%
($2,326.17)
has gone
towards building
materials & labor to renovated the building for the library, including
8
tables, 42
chairs, 16
bookcase modules, electrical, 4
florescent lights, paint, artwork, wall and window repairs. 38.6%
($3,871.48)
was used for book
purchases for 937
books, includes cataloging equipment donated to the library.
14.6%
($1,460.72)
for travel
expenses, including food and lodging for 3
people for
14 days, and
airfare for 2
people. 13.6%
($1,368.90)
has been used for startup
costs, filing fees, operations, and Internet fees to date. 10.0%
($998.90)
remains - cash
on hand. Officers and/or
directors of Tomas Tomas do not receive monetary compensation or
salaries, however they do receive out of pocket expenses.
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