Library, Getting School Ready

A letter from Brian Soneda, Director, Mount Vernon City Library

On November 1, a carpool of four Early Learning Public Library Partnership (ELPLP) members from Skagit County drove down to the ELPLP Symposium. We had a great time and learned a lot. Dr. Lebedeva, of UW I-LABS, made brain research clear and utterly fascinating. As a history major, I have always thought was impossible. Some of the best learning happened when we talked to our ELPLP colleagues and the presenters informally over lunch and breaks.

A lot of the attendees were Youth Services staff members from their respective libraries, including Linda Allen (Mount Vernon Library) and Kathy Brewer (Sedro-Woolley Public Library) from our carpool.  You’d expect that; those on the frontlines of providing service to Early Learners probably have the most to gain from the Symposium.

But I know there were at least two library directors at the Symposium. Debra Peterson (Sedro-Woolley) and I (Mount Vernon) are both committed charter members of ELPLP. ELPLP library directors get some credit for the work we do to get our libraries to fund our memberships in ELPLP. The valuable work ELPLP does on behalf of the Early Learning mission in our libraries does not come cheap. To be blunt, we DESERVE credit for our work on making ELPLP happen.

But Debra and I are also proud to advocate for the value of ELPLP simply by attending the Symposium. Directors get a lot out of attending too. And if anyone were to say Presidents of Washington Library Association also get a lot out of attending, the office I hold had nothing to do with my decision to attend, but if it looks like the stamp of approval to anyone, I’m good with that.

The Foundation for Early Learning is delighted to feature a guest blog post from Brian Soneda, of the Mount Vernon City Library, a member of the Early Learning Public Library Partnership.

If you are interested in being featured in the Foundation's blog, please contact Joel Ballezza, Communications Manager at joel@earlylearning.org.

For my contribution to the Foundation blog, I have decided to tell a little story about a little book, Getting School Ready!®. As you all know, this valuable booklet (and it’s versions in Cambodian, Chinese, English, Korean, Russian, Somali, Spanish and Vietnamese) is a product of a fruitful collaboration between the Foundation for Early Learning, The Boeing Company, United Way, and others. It has great information with “the whole child” in mind that parents and caregivers need to know before kids enter school.

When Margy Miller, of Ready Children Consulting, announced to local supporters of Early Learning in early August that a new stock of these booklets were available, she also asked if any of us had “connections with businesses or banks and would be willing to ask if they would distribute Getting School Ready booklets for two weeks” in the days before schools got back in session. I thought this idea of broadening the distribution network was a great one, and asked a Mount Vernon Chamber of Commerce colleague who is a Vice President at a regional bank if he could use Getting School Ready at his banks.

Jeremy said “we would love to help with the campaign” and added that if I got the booklets to him, he would make sure they were available in Business Bank’s Mount Vernon and Burlington banks. I went down to the Mount Vernon office of Volunteers of America, where Margy had alerted René to have some booklets in English and Spanish available for Mount Vernon City Library. When I got to Volunteers of America, René had a box with enough booklets for MVCL ready. I told him about Jeremy at Business Bank; could René spare another 100 booklets in English and a 100 in Spanish?

René could and soon had scrounged together the additional 200 booklets. Later that afternoon, on my way home, I dropped off Business Bank’s share of the booklets. Jeremy acted like I was doing him a favor, when actually he was doing me one. Or rather, Chamber members were helping each other out and the mission of the Foundation for Early Learning and the Early Learning Public Library Partnership was being advanced.

And so my story ends with…it was a good day in libraryland and for Early Learning.

Brian Soneda

Director, Mount Vernon City Library

Picture of Mount Vernon City Library Director Brian Soneda with his daughter Kioko