Once Upon A Time…
There lived a youth in Miami. He had two brothers and one sister and lived in a small apartment with his mother and grandmother. He took two buses in the morning and afternoon to get to his school but he did not mind. In his classes, he would always pay attention and do his work. His favorite days where those when his class would be allowed to use the library, the days his whole grade had testing, except he wasn’t allowed to take out the books. No one was.
The sad reality is that although free resources such as school libraries, Miami-Dade County libraries, and non-profit organizations at times provide books to children, many youth here may never have the opportunity to take out a book. Literacy is vital to youth development and can drastically change a child’s situation much like a community can shape a child.
Save Our Stories proposes to bring the power of books and their stories to the communities of Miami-Dade. The idea is composed of two elements: a mobile library and story time. The mobile library would visit different public spaces (parks, urban gardens, etc.) to bring the power of books to places close to the community and accessible without the restraints of public transportation, hours of operation, or a membership card. The story time would accompany the bookmobile and would feature a children story read aloud by a volunteer (in English, Spanish, and Creole) throughout the time the bookmobile would be at the space.
The objective is to promote literacy but also foster community involvement so as to garner support from local organizations, empower community members to occupy public spaces, and prove a catalytic force for pop-up community fairs to occur.