Posted on: Wednesday, July 7, 2004
Renovated library offers 'ohana to housing project's children
By Carrie Ching
Advertiser Staff Writer
In a concrete block building in the rear of the Mayor Wright Homes low-income housing project in Palama, the new Family Library is an oasis of cool. Outside, toddlers on plastic tricycles cross the blazing asphalt as young mothers hang T-shirts and sarongs on laundry lines. Inside the tiny 10-by-10-foot library, books line freshly painted shelves. An air conditioner hums.
• Grand reopening ceremony for residents is from 10:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. today in Building 31. • Regular storytimes for resident children will be Mondays and Wednesdays from 10 a.m. to noon (for preschoolers) and 2 to 4 p.m. (for ages 6-12). Saturday storytimes with crafts and snacks will be on the second and fourth Saturdays of each month. • ESL classes are offered in the spring and fall. • To volunteer with Hawai'i Literacy, call 537-6706 or visit www.literacynet.org/hilit. What used to be a stuffy room with cardboard boxes full of books is now a stylishly decorated reading room with two Internet-ready computers and a miniature armchair. The reopening ceremony for residents and volunteers will go on all day today with story readings, snacks, goody bags and games.
"The library hasn't had a lot of use in the last few years," said Katy Chen, executive director of Hawai'i Literacy. "It was so hot."
The Family Library run by Hawai'i Literacy had been in one room of a three-bedroom apartment in Building 31 — converted into a Family Service Center — since 1995.
The library has regular storytimes, English as a Second Language (ESL) classes and books that can be checked out by children who live in the complex. But social workers said kids stopped coming around two years ago because staffing shortages and the clutter made the library inaccessible.
"People run book drives to donate books, but we didn't have any shelves to put them on," Chen said. The remodeling was made possible through a $5,000 grant from The Pettus Foundation and the donated services of interior designers at the Wimberly, Allison, Tong & Goo architectural firm.
Residents such as Lolita Nardo are eager for the new library to be accessible to kids in the housing project. Between her time organizing a youth dance troupe and doing outreach at the Family Service Center, Nardo, 34, has little time to entertain her own four children, ages 1› to 14.
"Some families get eight to 10 kids in the household and only one parent," said Nardo, who has lived in Mayor Wright Homes for 15 years.
More than 1,500 children live at Mayor Wright Homes. Most are from immigrant families from Micronesia, the Marshall Islands, and Southeast Asia, said Family Service Center program manager Lynne Akana. English is a second language for most of the residents, Akana said, and some speak no English at all.
"A lot of kids who come in are immigrants and need this even before school — just to have exposure to reading," Akana said.
Mayor Wright Homes was notorious for crime and drug dealing in the 1990s, but residents say the area has improved since the Weed & Seed neighborhood cleanup program began in 1998. Last month a fugitive was killed in a shootout with police two buildings over from the Family Service Center and library.
Akana said she hopes the new library will help provide resident children a nurturing environment where volunteers can supervise them.
"If they like the staff, they'll keep coming back," she said. "They're always looking for another mommy or auntie."
If not for the storytimes and snacks, Nardo said resident kids might hang out just for the air-conditioning and new decor.
"When they see it now they say, 'Ho, wow! We can go inside?'" she said.
"Everything's new in there," Akana said. "They're not used to that."
Reach Carrie Ching at cching@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-8054.
This morning the Family Library run by Hawai'i Literacy, Inc., a nonprofit agency that teaches children and adults to read and write, will be reopened after six months of renovation.
Family Library at Mayor Wright
