Stockton’s annual Family Day in the Park is fast approaching! This year, it will be held at the beautiful University Park in Midtown Stockton. It will be on Saturday, September 13, 2008 from 9:30 to 3:30 pm. University Park is located between Magnolia and California streets.

Over 80 businesses and organizations are scheduled to be at the event, and there is something to do for everyone!

The Record has been bringing the Literacy and Book Fair, Family Day at the Park for the past nine years to Stockton’s families. It serves to motivate Stockton’s families by presenting a variety of activities that prepare the youth for a healthy future. Booths such as “Friendly Freeway” and “Library Lane” provide a fun and entertaining afternoon for the entire Family

The Stockton2020 team will also be present at Family Day in the Park, so look for us! We will be located down Library Lane.

Many students overlook the need to use their public libraries while in high school.

Parkway High School teacher Tracy Burrell has a goal to see that every incoming ninth-grade student owns a library card.

On Aug. 12, she invited the Bossier Parish Library Aulds Branch to participate in the back-to-school kickoff for Parkway High School freshmen.

Aulds Branch Manager Ellendell Harbour and I prepared 250 packets and library card forms for the newest Parkway Panthers.

The packets included information about technology resources, research tips, reference help source “ASK a Librarian” cards and bookmarks.

To read more click here!

Complaints are heard world wide of the lackluster spirit of change in today’s youth, 19-year old John Tyler Hammons at the University of Oklahoma begs to differ. He won the mayoral race on May 13, 2008 in Muskogee, Oklahoma, becoming one of the youngest mayors in the country.

“The public placing their trust in me is the greatest, humbling and most awesome experience I’ve ever had in my life,” Hammons said.

John Tyler Hammons won with 70 percent of the vote over former Mayor Hershel Ray McBride after a runoff election for the nonpartisan mayoral post after neither secured 50 percent of the vote in a six-person election on April 1. They were running to replace outgoing Mayor Wren Stratton, who decided not to seek re-election after one term in office.

Hammons serves as a humble reminder that today’s youth are not a lost cause but rather a generation that is thirsty for change and ready to take action.

For further information about John Tyler Hammons please click here.

From May 16 to 18, Contra Costa County’s Library System will be throwing a three-day reading festival that includes “readings and circus acts, panel discussions and puppet theater at 25 libraries in the county system.”

The festival includes many big name guests, including “New York Times best-selling author Catherine Coulter, author of several suspense thrillers including her newest, “Double Jeopardy,” and local author Kelly Corrigan, whose memoir “The Middle Place” spent several weeks on the Northern California best sellers list.”

Even more interesting than the festival itself is the history behind the creation of the festival. From 2003 to 2005, the Contra Costa County Library system underwent an extensive self-evaluation process, focusing on the role of a library in the 21st century. After many meetings in coffee shops, libraries, and community centers, the county library decided to transform the library into a place that, according to Laura O’Donoghue, deputy county librarian, offers “lifelong opportunities and special programming”, along with a wide variety of books.

From this mission, the idea of the festival evolved, offering, in the words of Susan Lynn, the Contra Costa County Library’s reading and literacy manager “a chance to discover the wonder of libraries while celebrating reading and literacy.” A reading festival of this scale would be an amazing idea here in Stockton!

For more information on the festival, click here.

To all those who have supported Stockton2020, we thank you. We are proud and excited to officially announce our transition to a 501c3 non-profit corporation. In honor of our new status as the first youth-based non-profit in our area, we would like to invite you to the first Stockton2020 Milestone Celebration held in the lobby of the Benerd School of Education on the University of Pacific Campus. The Stockton2020 Milestone Celebration will be held from 7 to 8:30 PM this Friday May 2nd. Refreshments will be provided, but it would be awesome if you could bring some goodies! The event will be held in honor of the late Fran Abbott, a long-time youth advocate, who played a crucial role in our beginning.

This could not have been possible without the help of dedicated individuals and organizations. A special thanks goes out to Fred Gertler, Lynn Beck, Philip Gilbertson, Susan Eggman, the Library and Literacy Foundation of San Joaquin, the Friends of the Stockton Public Library, Sophoan Sorn Productions, and Susan Lenz and Connie Logan from Iacopi Lenz & Associates. You dreamt with us and believed in us. Now please join us as we celebrate this milestone.

Life is a learning process…even when you turn 70! Alferd Williams was illiterate all of his life, but after watching Alesia Hamilton’s class through the door after taking his grandchildren to school, Williams eventually got up the nerve to ask her to teach him to read.

It just goes to show that it doesn’t matter how old you are, or where you come from. Literacy is something that benefits mankind in itself.

Williams said that as the son of a sharecropper, he was obligated to work in the fields with his father at the time most kids were learning the three “R’s”. He says he always knew the importance of education because he saw how his father was always mistreated due to his illiteracy.

Williams began learning to read at the age of 68, and now he says that his life is much easier. He is able to do the grocery shopping and save money. Instead of wandering around aimlessly or squandering money on things he did not need, he can efficiently get the job done.

Williams plans to take his new learning skills all the way to college. He serves as an inspirational figure for all his fellow first graders telling them that they can accomplish anything if they set their mind to it.

Like Alferd Williams says…
“It’s a whole new world.”

Watch his video, click here
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According to the National Assessment of Adult Literacy, roughly 30 million adults in the US are unable to read basic texts, such as directions or medical instructions. One of the most common causes of illiteracy is parents who are unable to read, says David C. Harvey, president of ProLiteracy Worldwide, a nonprofit advocacy group.
The consequences of illiteracy are devestating; they carry on through the generations. Low literacy is a cause of unemployment and poverty.
Harvey says, “People can change their lives completely by improving their literacy.”

The Libraries Change Lives Campaign of Stockton 2020 couldn’t agree more.

Due to the repair worked needed on the Troke Branch Library’s roof, most ofthe libraries collections and computers will be temporarily moved to Weberstown Mall. Since the most successful libraries are located in areas of high foot traffic, we look forward to what this opportunity will bring. Council Member Susan Eggmen cordially remarked, “”Perhaps people who wouldn’t think about going by a library … might discover the joy of reading.”

The Record
David Siders
“Troke Library headed to mall”

Trucks will ferry computers, furniture and thousands of books from north Stockton’s Margaret K. Troke Branch Library to Weberstown Mall this spring. The branch will be closed from April 26 until June 7 when it reopens for a six-month stay at the mall.

The change in location is being driven by needed roof repair work on Troke’s original building at 502 W. Benjamin Holt Drive.

Troke, the busiest branch in the Stockton-San Joaquin County Public Library system, is expected to resume regular operations by November, library spokeswoman Heather Mompean said. The temporary branch will open at the mall in space previously occupied by Gateway Inc., next to Dillard’s department store.

To read more click here.

The cultural transformation Stockton is waiting for will take place when our youngest citizens are equipped with the tools of transformation. Salinas is doing exactly this by handing each student in the nearby school district of 7,400 a library card. In our world , the library card represents more than access to fanciful tales of fictitious foes; in fact, it retains the power to aid so many people in our community in pursuit of a healthier and more prosperous life. Check it out!

Salinas Californian - www.thecalifornian.com - Salinas, CA

Many individuals overlook the potential of libraries to help the homeless pull their lives together. The Seattle Post Intelligencer published an article on how Seattle’s latest central library built four years ago was built with the homeless in mind. Enjoy!

Nancy Pearl keeps telling this story about the homeless man in the library, because — landmark new building or not — the problems he represented still exist:

She was walking in the old Central Library when the man stepped out, holding an iron. He was looking for an electrical outlet, she said, and couldn’t find one in the men’s bathroom. He had a job interview. He needed to iron his shirt.

Pearl, director of the Washington Center for the Book, led him upstairs and let him iron in her own office. His plight still brings tears to her eyes.

…The new library was designed with those issues in mind.

To read the whole article, click here