Librarian Ms. Suzanne Osman recently applied for and won a grant from 7/11 to celebrate the grand opening of a new location near our school. We interviewed Osman to ask how she will spend the money to support the library program.
How Did You Hear About this new grant from 7/11?
College Counselor Ms. Mary Charlton emailed a few teachers she thought might be interested and of course, the library always needs money so I emailed them the second I heard about the opportunity and told them we need more books. We need to recover books we lost during covid and we need to get some of the new books that were published during quarantine. So, we need to beef up this establishment. They wrote me back not too long ago saying they wanted to give us the money.
Where is the money going?
A few things, some of the kids lost books during covid, it happens! So we just want to repurchase the books that we think the kids would like. There were also books that came out during the covid year that we didn’t get a chance to buy because we weren’t here. We have a whole year and a half of missing books that we want to add to some of our series. Some of the beloved authors that we all love had books come out that we wanted to purchase. I’m also doing a massive weeding project where I am just getting rid of obsolete books and I want to identify where there are some gaps where we need new books. After a couple of years, these books are obsolete. We have books from the 1980s and those are books from before you guys were born! Some of those are really problematic. So I want to figure out where the gaps are and get some new books to give us a sense of rebirth.
How much money does the library get every year to spend on books?
Nothing. We don’t have a budget so I do a lot of grant writing. Every dollar counts!
When will the check come in?
The General Manager wasn’t really definitive. Within the next few weeks.
What item would you get from the new 7-11?
I’m kind of a health freak so I’m not going to get the blue slushie. Maybe like Marc Strassner, I would get a banana.
