Community – Page 4

It is officially National Library Week! This year it’s April 10-16, so please find some way to support and/or advocate for your public library this week. I wrote to three government officials via the Massachusetts Library Association site, and have already received two replies: one a formality from one of the Governor’s aides, but another really nice e-mail (personal enough to tell my own letter had been read) from State Senator Patricia Jehlen, agreeing about the importance of libraries in our communities.

It’s easy to think of government as impersonal, removed, and impossibly bureaucratic (and, at present, rather gridlocked). That makes it all the more gratifying to be reminded that the government is made up of people, and those people are there for our benefit. So write to your legislators today, and remember to say thank you!

I have a pen pal!

Last fall, I volunteered to be part of the Promising Pals program through the Scott/Ross Center for Community Service at Simmons. For months, I received bright yellow postcards indicating that the program was underway, that the students were very excited, that the first letter would be arriving soon, etc. The program was delayed a little because of all the snow days, but last week I finally received my first letter. My correspondent (pen pal!) is a sixth-grade student at the James P. Timilty School in Roxbury, and she has handwriting so exceedingly neat that it puts mine to shame.

I like writing (and receiving) letters – real, paper letters, not e-mail – but I underestimated how exciting this program would be. More precisely, I forgot how enthusiastic sixth-graders can be, and how that enthusiasm can be contagious. It’s not just letter-writing; it’s getting to know someone who would otherwise be a stranger, and getting to know that person through that antiquated medium of pen and paper (not the internet!). We’re different ages – different generations, eek! I actually wrote letters in grade school because e-mail didn’t yet exist on the scale it does now – we have different backgrounds and different interests, but we have been randomly connected. The main purpose of the program may be “to highlight literacy and mentoring,” but what a cool way to do that – by reading the same book and discussing it, in handwritten letters.