Wednesday, November 10, 2010

Rewarding....

... was the theme of today.

As part of a continuing partnership that I have been trying to develop with the Ottawa Mission, I visited the Stepping Stones Learning Centre for adult learners at the Mission last week and the Day program today. The Day Program (the only program of its kind in Ottawa) is a daily group program for clients in the shelter and the community who may not be ready to commit to residential addiction treatment (participants must be clean and sober each day they attend the program).

Both visits were extremely well-received, and about 30 men learned about the library’s programs and services, including library membership, computer usage, databases for research and hobbies. Each person also received information about library programs, a bookmark and a free paperback. The men were welcoming, interested, and grateful for the personal connection to the library. Honestly, both groups were exemplary. I could not have been more impressed.

This morning, only a few hours after I visited the Day Program, three men from the group had already come in to get library cards for the first time!

2 comments:

  1. I love posts like these. It makes me want to run away and join the circus (well, run away and become a public librarian).

    Sincerely, I am inspired when I read posts like these ones.

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  2. thanks, Laura. I came back to work pretty psyched for the rest of the day. It was one of my big goals to visit there. Unfortunately, having built the relationship, one of my two contact there (who are big lib supporters) is leaving in Dec., so I'll have to start aaaaall over again in 2011. Sigh!

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