It started with a simple request: would anyone in the Timbers Army be willing to volunteer a little time to help shelve books at Cesar Chavez K-8 in Portland?
It was 2013, and the school had only a half-time library assistant to maintain the library. Books needed to be shelved, new inventory needed to be catalogued; the library simply needed more hours of labor to take back and maintain.
Timbers Army members rose to the occasion. They came in afternoons and weekends, shelving carts full of books left out. They went through the stock room and cleaned and organized the shelves full of books, some of which librarian Linda Espinosa simply had been unable to process and get on the shelves. Volunteers could see their work pay off, as Linda was able to run the library as a functional resource for kids K-8.
As volunteers worked, they could see the need for additions to the collection. The 107IST prepared to donate money to purchase bilingual soccer books. Thanks to the over 150 volunteer hours the TA had donated, GEAR UP made a matching grant to double the number of books the 107IST was able to donate.
This year, we upped the ante.
Last year, we donated bilingual soccer books to one library. This year, The 107IST expanded the donation in scope and size, donating over five thousand dollars’ worth of soccer books to Portland Public School libraries. The books were delivered to all 26 elementary schools in PPS that are Title I schools, which are schools with a high percentage of students living in poverty. Many of the books are bilingual, and all of the titles feature soccer and soccer stars from around the world.
Linda Espinosa, library assistant at Cesar Chavez, shared how excited students were to receive book donations. She told of one boy who had refused to even look at a library book all year. After the soccer book donations arrived, "he sorted through the stack, looking at each title and muttering, 'I hate him and him and him' under his breath. Then he hit one he was excited about. He sat down and started reading! He still wouldn't check anything out, but he wouldn't leave for lunch until he finished the book!"
Diane Newton, library assistant at Sitton Elementary, writes:
THANK YOU to the 107ist for the bilingual books we received a couple months ago from your wonderful organization. I am the librarian here at Sitton in North Portland, and as I am finally getting to the end-of-year shelving, I see that most of the books you gave us were the last ones returned last week, meaning dead-on favorites that they did NOT want to return- in other words, a true success!
"These books, wonderfully chosen and right on target quality, skill and interest-wise, are a sincere treat to a low-income school such as ours- especially with our high hispanic population- I know many checked out the books and shared them with their whole family: SCORE!
A ticket-holder in section 109 myself, I love and appreciate all that TA in general does for the team, the fans, and our town; but today, I'm especially thankful that 107ist cares enough to share their passion with little kids who otherwise would not have access to THEIR passion in Spanish.
