10 Mar Become a Page Turner – Join our Monthly Giving Program!
“I LOVE the Library. I always have. When I was a kid, the Carnegie Library in my small Minnesota town was a treasure box of books that opened the whole wide world to me. I know that lots of us are nostalgic about libraries. We may see them through the lens of childhood storybooks or school age study halls or young adulthood refuges. But my experience in Santa Barbara has launched me out of nostalgia.
When I retired in 2015, I knew that I wanted to do something in the Library, like shelve children’s books. I entered my retirement hoping to follow the advice of poet Mary Oliver in her poem “Instructions for Living”:
Pay attention.
Be astonished.
Tell about it.
So I paid attention to the need for Homework Helpers in the Children’s Library, became a Homework Helper, and I was absolutely astonished!
I learned here that libraries are much more than books, they are a critical literacy center for all ages.
• I saw kids learning to read, and their parents learning English.
• I saw teens in the Tech lab and seniors getting computer savvy.
• I saw everybody at the Library.
• I saw that the Library is a place where everybody’s world gets a little bit wider and a whole lot better, and it’s free.
And so, I went to work to do my best to “tell about it” with my service on the Santa Barbara Public Library Foundation Board. I love to say that local public libraries are the bedrock of our fragile democracy, the place where everyone is welcome, everyone is equal, everyone can learn. Libraries need public support!
Now, as Past President of the Library Foundation Board, I continue to be thrilled to do anything I can for our Library. That’s why I’m a Page Turner, because I know organizations count on regular monthly support—I figure it’s a good way to Pay Attention! I also give to the annual Santa Barbara Reads Campaign and the year-end Annual Appeal as well as any new major effort like our Children’s Library, the new Library Plaza and its Endowment and whatever next is needed.
I hope to continue to Pay Attention, Be Astonished, and Tell About It.”
– Past Board President, Anne Howard
