In an exciting new partnership, Hartford Public Library’s Barbour Branch Library, thanks to a partnership with Foodshare, will now become a food distribution center for Northeast neighborhood families in addition to offering regular library services.
Shelf-stable groceries and fresh fruit, when available, will be distributed outdoors at the branch, located at 261 Barbour Street, the second and fourth Thursdays of the month from 3 to 4 pm while the branch is closed to the public. The first distribution day will take place Thursday, February 11.
“We are extremely excited to embark on this partnership with Foodshare and to continue our commitment to serving the people of the Northeast neighborhood in ways that will feed their hearts, minds, and bodies,” said Bridget Quinn-Carey, HPL’s president and CEO.
“I strongly believe Hartford Public Library is one of our strongest anchor institutions in Hartford. HPL is not just a traditional public library; the HPL offers various holistic services to our community. HPL and all their branches are at the center of our communities. Community members’ love, trust, and know they can receive assistance and help from the library,” said Yahaira Escribano, programs partner coordinator for Foodshare.
The Library will also partner with “Our Piece of the Pie,” a nonprofit organization dedicated to empowering youth with the key competencies needed to overcome barriers and succeed in education and employment. Teenagers affiliated with the non-profit will work at the Barbour Library helping to bag and distribute the food.
It’s an example of how community partnerships can extend each organization’s reach and impact. In this instance, thanks to this one relationship, much needed food gets distributed, teenagers receive practical work experience, and Hartford residents receive an introduction to the services the library can provide.
“It is so needed in this neighborhood,” said Irene Blean, manager of the Barbour Library. “We want to support the whole person.”
The Library and Foodshare started working together about a year and a half ago, specifically providing after-school and summer snacks for children. The two organizations had been in conversations on how to deepen their relationship, said Bonnie Solberg, coordinator of branch services.
“We were looking for a way to expand our partnership where we can do it right now,” Solberg said. “In these challenging times, this kind of outreach gives us the opportunity to have an immediate impact.”
Marie Jarry, director of public services, believes this is the first time in Connecticut that a library and Foodshare have entered into a formal partnership. If the program is successful at Barbour, the library may look for ways to extend food distribution to other branches. “The need is increasing,” Jarry said.
Blean believes that this is also an opportunity to extend what would be considered more traditional library services. To that end, Blean is holding a Valentine’s Day themed event in conjunction with the first food distribution on February 11.
Blean and her team will recite poetry and hand out chocolate Hershey kisses to whomever comes to the library from 3 to 4 pm. The Library on Wheels will also be on hand to distribute novels by bestselling author Eric Jerome Dickey, and other romance titles.
“We hope to create more engagement in what we are offering,” Blean said.
In addition to the bags of groceries, Blean and her team will distribute 25 new children’s winter coats donated by Lawrence International.
The School Choice Coordinator, a Hartford Behavioral Health representative, and the Library’s intern from the University of Connecticut School of Social Work will be present at the event to provide assistance.
For more information about Foodshare’s work, visit foodshare.org.
For more information about Our Piece of the Pie, visit opp.org.
For more information about Hartford Public Library, visit hplct.org.
By Steven Scarpa, manager of public relations and c0mmunications
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By Yahaira Escribano, Partner Programs Coordinator, Foodshare
Foodshare and HPL began their partnership on October 2020 as a snack program. We both felt there was a need to better serve our youths, especially after school. During this time, we spoke of the potential of expanding their services by helping families who are food insecure through a HPL pantry in the future. Unfortunately, COVID-19 hit us and we had to take a pause in our joint efforts until we had a better sense of how to safely serve our community members. As soon as COVID-19 hit, we all witnessed unemployment skyrocket and the number of families in need of nutritional assistance increase drastically. After a couple of months of all us figuring out how to best navigate COVID-19 and continue offering needed services to our community, Foodshare and HPL picked-up our conversation about establishing and executing the HPL Pantry sooner than later to meet the unprecedented and growing needs in our community.
The north-end of Hartford has the most social and economic disparities in our community and it has been one of the hardest hit neighborhoods during COVID-19. I strongly believe HPL is one of our strongest anchor institutions in Hartford. HPL is not just a traditional Public library; the HPL offers various holistic services to our community. The HPL and all their branches are at the center of our communities. Community members’ love, trust, and know they can receive assistance and help from the library. I feel and share these sentiments because I was born and raised in the north-end, specifically on Martin Street and I used to go to the Barbour Branch as much as possible. The library was influential for me and I see the library as a safe haven for so many of us are hit hard, and struggling to get by for various reasons, and now by having the ability to safely and sustainability offer emergency food assistance to those of us who are in need is going to transformative and life changing for our community members.
As we grow our partnership, our goal is to sustainably and safely expand our emergency food pantry services to the other branches so we are all able to meet and reach more community members right in their neighborhood. By integrating an emergency food pantry as part of the various services and programs that are offered, I strongly believe that the HPL will be able to remove the difficult decision and barrier people are facing on deciding whether or not to one your programs or other services, like your GED programs, in order to find some type of temporary work to get food on the table. By removing this one barrier, community members will be better able to access all the other services and programs the HPL has to offer. Overall, we hope that we will all continue to increase the impact of this service throughout Hartford so more households’ basic needs are being met.
For more information about Foodshare, visit foodshare.org.
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The seminarian : Martin Luther King, Jr. comes of age, By Patrick Parr
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On April 4, 1968, at 6:01 PM, while he was standing on a balcony at a Memphis hotel, Martin Luther King, Jr. was shot and fatally wounded. Only hours earlier King — the prophet for racial and economic justice in America — ended his final speech with the words, “I may not get there with you, but I want you to know tonight, that we as a people will get to the Promised Land.”
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From the pages of this extraordinary collection, Dr. King emerges not only as an advocate for global human rights but also as a towering figure who collaborated with Eleanor Roosevelt, Albert J. Luthuli, Thich Nhat Hanh, and other national and international figures in addressing a multitude of issues we still struggle with today: from racism, poverty, and war to religious bigotry and intolerance. Introduced and edited by distinguished King scholar Lewis Baldwin, this volume breaks new ground in our understanding of King.
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Be a King: Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s Dream and You, by Carole Boston Weatherford and illustrated by James E. Ransome
Featuring a dual narrative of the key moments of Dr. King’s life alongside a modern class as the students learn about him, Carole Weatherford’s poetic text encapsulates the moments that readers today can reenact in their own lives. See a class of young students as they begin a school project inspired by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and learn to follow his example, as he dealt with adversity and never lost hope that a future of equality and justice would soon be a reality. As times change, Dr. King’s example remains, encouraging a new generation of children to take charge and change the world.
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(from left) Victoria Palmatier, Michelle Lipar, and Irene Blean hand out free winter coats at Barbour Library
As people gathered to received free winter coats and bags of food at Barbour Library, Michelle Lipar, an intern at the University of Connecticut School of Social Work, worked the line.
“Hello, remember me, I haven’t seen you in a while,” she called out to a customer.
She handed out flyers with her contact information and a list of the services the library offers. “If you need any other help, I’m the social work intern at the library,” she said.
Lipar handing out fliers
Lipar, Barbour Library manager Irene Blean, and children’s library Victoria Palmatier set up on the sidewalk outside the library branch. Liz Castle, HPL’s programming manager, pulled up with the Library on Wheels and started handing out free books. The team was set to make a small, but tangible impact that day – they were going to help people get warm.
Lipar hatched the idea a couple of weeks back and started looking for donations. Button Up Connecticut, a non-profit organization whose mission is to collect clean, new and gently used coats and distribute them to residents in need all across Connecticut, donated 60 coats. She sought other donations to fund the bags of food. “People gave me stuff,” Lipar said.
Blean, second from right, talks to customers
A lot of social work involves working through processes that can often be daunting for someone seeking help. What Lipar liked about this particular project is that there was no barrier to entry – if someone was cold and needed a coat, they got one, no questions asked.
“It was a way to directly access people,” she said.
Palmatier helping a family pick out coats for their kids
The men’s coats went quickly. Some people came with their children. The HPL team worked through the line, urging people to make sure they took socks and food.
The North End is Hartford’s poorest neighborhood, Blean said. “The pandemic makes it even worse,” she said. “You can’t be successful with regular library programming until you address basic needs.”
When Blean has an event like this she works the phone, calling neighborhood groups and local non-profits to find people who might benefit. She e-mails customers personally. She, like her counterparts across the Hartford Public Library system, are tireless in trying to help.
“This is my way of saying we are still here for you,” she said.
For Lipar, Thursday’s event was part of an ongoing learning experience. “I learned that I have a lot to learn. The things I think they want or need might not be the thing they want or need. I have to listen and to pay attention and be where they are,” Lipar said.
By Steven Scarpa, manager of public relations and communications
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Barbour Branch Library Manager Irene Blean was listening to an interview on the NPR show “On Being” with the writer Ross Gay that prompted her to have an idea for a program.
Gay had written a book of essays called “Book of Delights.” Each day for a year, starting from his 42nd birthday, Gay wrote about the joys he experienced every day – his garden, coffee and donuts, the simple things that make up a rich life.
“It is joy by which the labor that will make the life that I want, possible. It’s not at all puzzling to me that joy is possible in the midst of difficulty,” Gay told On Being host Krista Tippett in a 2019 interview.
Gay’s words struck a chord with Blean, and she decided to do something about it.
“I thought the topic was relevant to people struggling with the pandemic,” Blean said.
Using Gay’s book as a jumping off point for discussion, Blean has put together an event where people can share the things that make them happy. “Come ready to share a gleeful moment you may have witnessed or beloved quote, song, poem or book,” Blean said.
The event will take place on Zoom, Thursday, January 14 at 7 pm. To register please call 860-695-7401 or email iblean@hplct.org for a Zoom invite.
Blean hopes that by spending just a little while thinking about the good things in the their lives, they might be able to have a moment of respite from the stresses of the world around them. “I want people to realize that delight/joy is a choice for anyone to exercise and express in their lives, even when there is difficulty,” Blean said.
– By Steven Scarpa, Manager, Public Relations and Communications