Community Transformers

In the library's community conversations this year, we heard many people say we should be helping Largo's failing schools.  I wondered how to accomplish this for a while and finally asked the Recreation, Parks and Arts director where to begin.  The City of Largo has an established after care program at Ponce de Leon Elementary School and there is a newly appointed principal, so she felt it was the place to start.  First, we asked the other city directors if they would approve a plan to adopt Ponce.  Once given the blessing of city management and department directors, we had several informational sessions on how city employees could get involved.  From this, we had 24 people commit to being mentors, 12 volunteers for a beautification day at the school, 6 volunteers for English Language Learning for school parents, and 10 participants for general support in the school.

At the beautification day, November 1, not only did 12 city workers give up their Saturday morning to plant 20 trees and a huge bed of plants, we encouraged 25 parents, kids and faculty to come out and get involved too.  Everyone was so pleased with the results.

 The Ponce Initiative not only fulfills the direction residents asked us take, it also expands library services with no additional staff.  In the Harwood methodology, it's referred to as being a boundary spanning organization.  We have a shared mission and we were ready to partner.  We hope to assist with bringing the school's grade up!

 Thank you from our partner!

 Together we can move mountains--of mulch anyway.

Community Transformers 2014