 role. We are ready and recording. Thank you very much Hank. So welcome to today's library chat. We are really thrilled to have three wonderful guests to talk with us about. That's why I said four wonderful guests. Thank God for Zoom to talk with us about the work that the library does in the community and serving the various disadvantaged populations in the town and being a resource for everyone. And I'm grateful that our guests have joined us. After the events that occurred yesterday, events which reminded us again of the fragility of our democracy and our rule of law and events which vividly displayed the inequalities in the way that different populations in this country are treated. I think two things are important. One is to try to imagine what I would call a more humble patriotism. A love of country that is less breastfeeding and more committed to addressing the injustices that have for too long been part of the American story. So let's say that's about reconceiving the way in which we think about the country we live in. The other thing is to celebrate the work that libraries do as places that welcome everybody on equal terms. And our critical resources are if American democracy is to survive, improve, and become genuinely welcoming for all populations. So with that, we have a quorum of the board of trustees. So I'm going to call the attendants and then we'll turn over the proceedings to our good colleague, Alex Lefebvre. So attendance, Alex? Present. Tammy? Present. Lee? Present. And I'm Austin Sarat. So we are, we have a quorum of the trustees. The trustees are all here. Alex? Thanks. So thank you everyone for being here. And before I get started, I just want to say that as people, it's your turn to be introduced and talk. I just want to hold the space that if you want to add on to Austin's thoughts about what happened yesterday, I certainly encourage that. If that's something that you want to want to do, please do that. And if you want to stay silent about it, that's obviously welcome as well. So with that, so libraries, as Austin said, are open to and serve everyone in a community. It's a free public place where the color of your skin, your gender, religion, physical ability, socioeconomic status, education level, age, they don't impact your access to the resources at the library. And part of the library's job is to keep our eyes open to the changes in our community and to shifts in population and make sure that we're responding by diversifying our materials, our services, and our staff to assure that we continue to provide digital and information equity for all. And ARIS has always prided itself on its progressive values and there have been moments throughout our history where individuals and organizations have recognized these changes in our community and they've responded with action. And for tonight's library chat, we're fortunate to have Lev Ben Ezra, who's the executive director of the Amherst Survival Center. Lev, how do you give us a wave? We also have Lynn Weintraub, who's the director of the Jones ESL program. And then I'll have you give a wave as well. We have Judith Roberts, who's the executive director of the Literacy Project. And Judith, you have brought a fourth person, which thank you very much and I'm going to let you introduce that person. This is Penny Stevens. Penny is a student at the Literacy Project and I know Penny also as a poet. Penny's also a poet and she's going to speak a little bit shortly. Brilliant. Thank you so much and really appreciate all of you being here tonight. So, Lev, I'm going to start with you. I think that most people in our town know about the Survival Center, have probably volunteered, donated, participated in, used the services of. I think it's a really high profile place, which is wonderful. But I don't know that everybody knows the story of the Amherst Survival Center and how it started. And I think at this moment in time with the impacts of the pandemic being felt by so many people, I think it's an important story to hear. So if you don't mind, I'd love for you to talk a little bit about how it got started. Great. Yeah. So thanks so much for having me. It's wonderful to be here with all of you and I'm happy to get to share this piece of the history of the center and how that really impacts what our role is in the community today and how we see our role in connection. So the Amherst Survival Center was started in the mid 70s really at a time and in response to growing poverty and homelessness in Western Massachusetts. And in the decade leading up to the Amherst Survival Center's founding, there was a real momentum nationwide of anti-poverty programs. There was the launching of President Johnson's War on Poverty, which set in motion a source of government funding for a number and starting of many community programs. There were around the country, the development of survival programs and survival centers by community groups such as the Black Panthers that included the free breakfast programs for hundreds of thousands of school kids and free medical clinics and community centers that provided free clothing and free food and helping people find jobs and connecting them to services. Lots of things that their folks who know this survival center well can sort of see that. And there was also a long history there of very similar types of fork the community by the community resource centers that had existed in indigenous communities nationwide. So I think there is this kind of collective national effort within communities of figuring out how to come together to provide the resources that people who were struggling needed. And an Amherst resident, Jane Halapa, brought the need for a community resource center to the attention of the town. She was a single mother and her family center and income had recently shifted dramatically. And around this time, her electricity had been cut. She had decreased welfare benefits. And she shared after the fact that she was finding this experience of asking for help to be brought with shame and really hard and not as effective as she needed it to be. And so she wanted to create a place of community support for people who were experiencing challenges to come together and address them and find solutions. So it started in her basement with a telephone and a clothing swap. That's where the Amherst survival center started. And response was strong. And it grew and believed that the clothing added a very small food swap and continued to grow. But it was really this community resource center and sharing place. So several years later, the town granted the Amherst survival center a space first in the Jones library. And then a few months after that, into the basement of the brick school in North Amherst, where it grew for the next 34 years, I think, until it moved to its current location. So the last thing I'll say about the history and how that translates to right now is that since its inception, the Amherst survival center really is first and foremost a community center. That the stuff, the food, the clothing, the place to do laundry or take a shower, that is all critically important. But that as important is a place for people to connect and to share experiences and resources. And Jay and Hapa bleed very strongly that people facing challenges would best would find the best solutions when they came together with other people who are facing similar challenges. So really, our reliance on volunteers, which is one of the things that we are really wonderfully known for is as much an operational necessity as it is an assertion of values that we all give, that we all receive, that we all have something to offer. And as Jane often said, that through sharing, there is enough. So I think that really kind of paints the picture of how the Amherst survival center came to be. Great. Thank you so much. So Judith, I'm going to come to you next. And the literacy project began in Greenfield, not Amherst, but has spread to five towns, including Amherst. And I think, you know, as a college town, we often think of our, you know, highly educated population and we really value education. And I think maybe some people may not understand why literacy project ended up in Amherst or maybe they do. But maybe you could talk a little bit about the literacy project and how it got started and how it wound up here. So the literacy project has been in Amherst since about 1997, when we were awarded a subcontract from the Department of Education to teach our adult education classes in Amherst. And for us, Amherst has always been challenging because space has always been a major issue. And when we first started, we were in the basement of the Jones Library. So that's kind of neat, because now we hope to come home to the new Jones when the Jones opens and and really what better place to call home for the literacy project where students fall in love with reading and writing than a house for books, the Jones Library. So, but you're right, Alex, the college town image of Amherst can sometimes really mask the real needs that the literacy project is trying to meet. We're highly educated town and those who are not fully educated are often overlooked in Amherst. And people I talk to are surprised like, oh, why do you have a classroom in Amherst? But we do serve, we have 52 students a year enrolled in our classes in Amherst. And we serve people 16 to 66 years old. And Amherst has a low high school dropout rate. But if you select for non native English speakers or students of color, the job out rate is higher. And we also serve in immigrants and refugees who have become who have gone through the ESOL programs and become fluent speakers, but need to get their high school equivalency diploma. So I want to say the education equity and access to education is a social justice issue. Because if you look around this zoom, and I can't see if we have attendees or not, I hope we do. But I would suggest that most people here got here because they had access to education. So we must make it a universal issue. So we have more about our students, 76% are between 18 and 45 years old. And 70% are non white, 30% are white. And I just want to celebrate our students because they face systematic inequities and things that have tried but failed to erase who they are, our students have persevered, they're courageous and successful, and strong, and you're going to hear from one of them shortly. So thank you. Great. Thank you so much. So that leaves Lynn. And Lynn, I think you've been working for with English language learners in Amherst for over 30 years. And so just like the others, there's sort of a creation story, which I think is really interesting and would love for you to share with us. Okay, thank you. First of all, I'd like to say that I would love to have one of my participants on this chat with us. That's a hard sell to get a limited English speaker to go on a chat like this. So rather than do that, I would like to refer anyone who's interested to our website, joneslibrary.org slash ESL, where they can see pre-recorded videos by three students, Rizwan, Jenny, and Ping, that speak to today's topic. And Hank's going to show you where the videos are located. Can everybody see that okay? Yeah. Okay, great. Can you scroll to the top of the page so they can see what it looks like? It's way down there on the page, but it's there. Okay, thank you. So how did we get started? As Alex said, the library's mission has always been to serve as a cultural and educational resource to the community, to all of the community. And in the 1980s, the library did a needs assessment to see if there was any segment of the community that was being left out and discovered that there was a cluster of newly resettled Cambodian refugees. And they weren't coming into the library because there was nothing of use to them at the library. They couldn't read English, they couldn't speak English. So the library said about putting together a collection of ESL instructional materials and started training tutors to work one to one with these refugees with adults to teach English, speaking, listening, reading, writing, cultural orientation, and citizenship preparation. And we found that a one-to-one tutoring model was really good for tailoring instruction to the students' specific needs. So for example, students who had several jobs or complicated work schedules might not be able to get into the community college or state-funded classroom programs, but they could meet with a one-to-one tutor afternoons, evenings, weekends, whenever it needed to be. And there were students who had very specific individual goals, like getting a driver's permit or job interview practice or citizenship, and they could work one-to-one with the tutors specifically on that. And also we found that elderly students and students with disabilities tended to benefit from the modifications in instruction that one-to-one tutors were able to provide. And eventually we began serving a broader swath of immigrants, immigrants from all over the world, who came here for many different reasons and who had many different educational backgrounds. Some of them had advanced degrees, but in their language, others had never been to school at all and couldn't even read their own language. And that is still the case. Eventually we also had enough volunteers that we were able to extend the service to international visitors. So these are people who many times they're connected with the university and they're here for a year or two and their spouses come with them. And sometimes they feel quite isolated here. And even though they speak some English, they're intimidated by the idea of talking to native speakers. So we can extend a little bit of help to them as well. Great. Thank you. So we are, I think, at an important moment again in the history of Amherst. And there are really striking changes to who we are as a community and what we need to thrive and how best to serve our entire community. So just 20 years ago, Amherst was 79% white, 42% of its residents held graduate degrees, another 27% held bachelor's degrees. The median family income was $61,237, and the median rent was $687. In 2019, the median income dropped to $57,000. And these are not inflation adjusted dollars. So it's actually even a bigger drop when you adjust for inflation. And at the same time, rents, median rents have increased to $1,376. Our poverty rate in 2019 for Amherst, not for the county, for Amherst was projected at 28%. And 10% of our population lack access to the internet. And I'm going to share a chart with you because I can't help it, people who know that my husband's an education. I am always looking at education. But I think that if we're looking at the enrollment of our elementary schools, I think that's a really good indicator of the direction that we're heading in. And so this is our current enrollment in blue. And if you look at it, we now have about 49% of our students that are identifying as white. And I think it's fabulous that we have an increased diversity in Amherst, but that means that we need to make sure that we are changing our staffing systems, everything to make sure that everyone feels welcome and have the resources and tools that they need. And then if you look at the selected population of students, this is from last year, you'll see that we've got about 48% of students who either their first language is not English, or they are listed as an English language learner. We have 21% of our students with disabilities, 49% high needs. And we've got 32% who are listed as economically disadvantaged. So let me see. Sorry, here we go. I've changed over to Google instead of Zoom, so I lose track of where I am on how to do these things. So I guess that to me shows sort of where we're headed and what we need to be looking at in terms of the community and how we can best serve the community. And so, Lev, I want to come back to you and talk about the programs and services that you're offering today at the Survival Center and then how you might be seeing a shift in what the needs are of the community. Thanks. So in our full operations, the Amherst Survival Center, as I mentioned before, is really a robust community center that provides lots of different resources to help people meet their basic needs. We have free meals, free groceries, a free health clinic, free clothing and housewares in the community store, abundant community activities from yoga classes to cooking to live music on many Fridays and movie nights, and a resource center where lots of other services are provided clearly under one roof, as well as many, many, many different opportunities for folks to volunteer and get connected and be engaged in that way. And so when COVID hit locally, we had to make some really tough decisions. Certainly things like closing down our dining hall, the indoor seated dining were very quickly decisions that would have been made for us. But we also had to make some other really hard choices about where to focus our efforts, given both what we anticipated would be the needs in the community and the realities of how to operate as safely as possible with all of the necessary COVID protocol, which for us caused an incredible reduction in the number of people we could have in the building that lost the number of volunteers that we could have any day spacing, all of those kinds of things. So we made what I feel very confident was the right place to focus, and it doesn't mean that it wasn't a really hard decision to choose to focus full on on our food and nutrition programs, knowing that we unfortunately correctly anticipated the incredible economic devastation that the pandemic was going to have locally and thus the rising food insecurity. And so really focus our efforts on providing more food to more people as safely as possible. So we're continuing to offer free daily lunches, hot delicious lunches, they're all prepackaged to go when are offered outside. We also still have daily access to produce and bread, which again are distributed outside. And then we're also doing our free full grocery shop, which is non perishables, as well as lots of fresh food and frozen meat and vegetables and fresh milk and eggs and all that kind of stuff, as well as non food items like toilet paper, even in March. And some other and personal care products diapers, menstrual products, etc. that are available. And the food pantry. So I would say that the key shifts that we saw in terms of what people were asking for from us or what we're saying that they needed is that we were seeing lots of people who had not previously come to the Emmer Survival Center who were registering for the first time. It has definitely flattened out since then but early on there were a few weeks where we saw four times the number of weekly pre-COVID new registrations, someone who had never been before. So those were folks who had previously been making ends meat, whatever that meant for them, but who lost jobs in some of the first ones to go, restaurant industries, folks who were housekeeping in hotels, like all these different roles that people lost off the bat. And really immediately we're finding themselves seeking food support for the first time, or at least from us for the first time. But we were also seeing folks who had been coming for a long time and maybe they had come every couple of months or in particular time when things were tighter and asking could they come, you know, certainly every month or maybe more groceries mid-month and folks who then were also just telling us they just needed more food. So is this kind of trickle effect of just many, many people facing significant economic hardship? And because for all of us, right, the money that we have pays for all of the basic necessities looking for different ways to piece those things together. The other really key challenge that was new or newly exacerbated, I should say, was the access and just getting to the Amherst Survival Center. And so that has always been a challenge for many people. If there is a bus that gets you to where you live, anyone who's tried to do their full grocery shop on a bus knows that it's a challenge and anyone who's tried to do that with a kid or two when a stroller knows that that just gets, you know, rippled out. And of course, many residents in Amherst and surrounding towns also don't have good bus access to where they live. But when COVID hit, we saw that exemplified buses shut down and then their schedules were really limited. People could no longer borrow a car from a neighbor or a carpool to get to us and their kids were home or daycare was closed. So they didn't have childcare to be able to do that. Seniors who used to come out were not leaving their homes and were really careful. So there was this huge access challenge. So that was our other really key program shift in light of COVID was for our food pantry, the full grocery shop that folks get. We're still offering that. People can come and pick it up on site, though the process is different with safety precautions. But we're also now offering a curbside delivery. So people essentially order it ahead of time and we put it right into their trunk of their car and also grocery delivery, which we hadn't done before and are now delivering groceries to more than 1100 people a month. So those have been the key shifts that have taken place within the context of COVID-19. And some of that is meeting the needs of the community in terms of more food and access options and just being more accessible to people who hadn't previously found us. And so didn't know us. And I would say you mentioned at the beginning, Alex, that many folks throughout town know about the Immersurvival Center. And I would say yes and no. In my two years at the Center, I've definitely learned that there are a lot of folks who don't know. And so trying to up our outreach game as well in terms of making sure that people know that we're here if we need them and know that we're available, that there are no income caps, that there's no documentation required, that there are no citizenship questions, having materials available in lots of different languages, like just being more accessible to anyone who might need us. But those other services, the clothing, the healthcare, the community activity, the sitting around with people who are facing similar challenges as you and having coffee, all those needs didn't go anywhere. And we're really looking forward to when it is safe to do so, being able to reintegrate those program offerings along with the increased food and nutrition programs that are meeting such a critical need. But unfortunately, I don't think it's going to go anywhere in the short term. Yeah, I think it's only going to grow probably for a while now. Thank you. Thank you. So Judith and Penny, I guess there's really sort of two elements that we're looking at, right? One is, you know, the pandemic is obviously causing a need that's amplified. But also, I guess in terms of programs and services, I mean, have you seen a shift from when the literacy project started in Amherst to what the needs are today? Are they the same as they were when you opened up your doors? Have they changed at all? Penny's going to talk about the programs and services currently, and I can talk a little bit about after that about some of the shifts. But Penny's living it, so she's a great person to talk about it. Hi, everyone. My name is Penny Stevens, and I've been living in Amherst for a long time. We moved here in the 70s. And I went to the grades, I went to, let's see, I went to East Street when it was a school. And then I went to Wildwood, and I went to the junior high in the Amherst High School. Unfortunately, when I got into the high school, it just wasn't, it wasn't, it wasn't good for me there. So I decided that I was going to drop out and, and so I did. And I started living my life. And I got married, had kids, and then I was like, you know what, I need to get my GED. So after my kids went off to do their things, I decided that I would go and get my GED. And I've been at the literacy project now for two years. And it's been so awesome. It's unfortunately that we can't walk through the doors right now because of the COVID virus, but it's been really great that everyone's been able to zoom in and we have our classes. I get to see all my classmates that I saw last year and, and everyone is just so awesome. And then teachers are just phenomenal. But the program is really great. And we have, we did a whole thing on stars. The Amherst College gave us a whole show on the stars. And that was really nice to do. And we've done two years of the Emily Dickinson poems. And that was nice. We did it online this year, but it turned out great. And they've served me personally really like I've, it's just been really nice. And I don't know what else to say, but we really need a program. And it's good that we have it because even if you're a young kid and you're not doing well at the school system, you can always fall back on this program. And they're always just so open arms. And it's just been really nice. So I don't know. I am a question. Did you do the Planetarium Amherst College online? Yes, we did. Yes. Yes, we did. And we also went to the Planetarium last year. Yeah, but we got to do it online. And so everyone's sitting in their own homes with this beautiful Planetarium and gentlemen who ran the course. It was just, it was really nice. Yeah. And we also write a book every year of our poems. And we have, we have one out now. We didn't do it this year because, you know, we can't, we can't really get together. But we do have a book and you can get that book and you can see everyone's poems in the book. And it was really nice. Yeah. So when one of the things that Penny mentioned, which is she was in person classes last year, until of course the shutdown in March 13. But now it's working out on Zoom. So we have made digital literacy. This is a major shift for us, is that we've made digital literacy an important part of our program as a skill in itself. So rather than just a way of delivering our core instruction, digital literacy is an increasingly part of our core instruction. So all of our classes have continued online. And we have classes at various levels in the Amherst and even have a reading group. And as Penny mentioned, we've had a poetry group and a poetry group read their poems live from the Emily Dickinson Museum this year online on Zoom, and had attendance from people all over the world, which was really neat. So that's an important shift for us. And it has worked partly also because we have given out 66 laptops this year to students. And we don't loan the laptops like some of the school systems do. We give them to the students. And I was talking to Sharon about this. We don't want to have a kind of an overdue book problem. Like if we loan a laptop, it gets broken or lost or whatever, life happens. We don't want people to feel aggrieved about that. So we give out the laptops. It belongs to the student. You know, if it breaks or whatever, we'll deal with that. We'll get another one. But no overdue library fees on laptops. And Sharon told me that the Jones no longer has overdue library fees as well on books, which is great for us readers. I'm a bit of a slow reader, even though I read a lot. So I like that. So that's a shift for us. And we've used our funding to purchase the laptops, mostly from generous donations because the state does not permit us to give out laptops. They will only pay for laptop loaners. And we didn't want to do that. So what also seeing the need for, you know, over the past few years of our students needing to go on past the high, past the high school equivalency, also known as the high set or can you refer to it as a GED, same thing. So we collaborate with the community colleges and the career centers to find out what jobs are available, what skills are needed. And can I just say one thing? We got to visit last year, Holyoke Community College and even take classes, which was really awesome. We all of us got to do that. And it felt good to be into that college situation, which I had never done. And so the literacy project is really awesome. It would be great to be able to walk through the literacy projects doors and not have to visit and be and, you know, pick up all of our stuff. And it'd be nice to just have our own building and just so hopefully that can happen someday soon. Thanks. And well, before we we wrap this question up, I just want to also give a shout out to our teachers. And Penny said that our students are courageous. Our teachers are so hardworking and dedicated because it is a lot of work to do these Zoom classes and everybody's embracing it and it's working. So thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you. So Lynn, I think I'm not sure how much people really know about the ESL program. I don't know whether people think it's just tutoring and conversation circle. Maybe you can talk a little bit about all the things that you do in the basement of John's library. Well, I can kind of meld that question with the earlier question about the changes in need that we're seeing. In recent years, we've seen an increasing demand for one-to-one tutoring, which is one of the things that we do. We have both instructional tutors and conversation partners that help higher level students to practice English and be more confident. At the time that the building closed in March, we had about 170 pairs and a wait list of about 15 people. Another thing that we do is the conversation circles. We had five very well attended conversation circles a week. And by the way, those have transitioned very easily onto Zoom. We also provide citizenship information, application assistance, and instruction. And there's been over the years an increasing demand for that as well. I'm going to tell you about three of the newer trends that I'm noticing. One of them is that the state-funded classroom ESL programs that we're not actually part of, those programs have sort of narrowed their focus on workforce development and college and career readiness. And that's great for young career-minded immigrants and maybe not so great for older students who are at the end of their working careers or who have left the workforce altogether. They still need English, but they need English for civic integration rather than academic purposes. And so that's something that we're really trying to provide for them apart from the state-funded ESL programs. A second trend that I'm noticing is asylum seekers. So in the past, people who crossed the border in Mexico ended up in border states. And right now, Western Massachusetts has a very active group of volunteers that are trying to assist asylum seekers who have made their way all the way up to New England. And you might be surprised to hear that they're not all Central Americans. There are a number of them from African countries and from the Middle East. And so that's one of the trends I'm seeing. And a third trend, it's just the increase in international researchers that UMass, that that's not the case during COVID. But in recent years, they're apparently UMass is a real powerhouse for research for people around the world. And so hundreds of these researchers and their spouses have been coming in and they speak some English. But as I said, they're a little bit nervous about speaking to native speakers. And they're intimidated sometimes. And in recent years, we have made it a focus to make sure that they know that whatever they're hearing from other sources, they are welcome here. So I think that our conversation partners and our conversation circles have played an increasingly important role in that. Great. Thank you. I'm keeping my eye on the clock and things only feel like one hour. So at the library, when we think about things like equity, inclusion, diversity, and accessibility, we're often thinking about how do we mitigate any kind of barrier that would prevent somebody from accessing our services. And that could be literacy, it could be language, it could be a physical barrier. And so given our, you know, 19 minutes left. What are you seeing just quickly as sort of the biggest barriers or challenges for you right now in terms of providing your services? I wonder whether in answering Alex's question, you might also just let us know what the library means to the populations that you serve. So I want to make sure that that gets out on the table before our time runs out. Thanks so much. Great. Alex, when you're asking that question, are you asking about what we're seeing as the most significant barriers to accessing the services and programs that each of our organizations or at the library? Your organizations, I mean, I'm thinking like from your perspective, right, the stigma around poverty that our society continues to insist on, right, creates barriers for people. So I'm just thinking along sort of those lines. And I mean, my follow up question, which we're probably not going to have time to talk about is like the importance of collaborations between our service organizations. And we've already started working with, you know, you obviously in terms of how we can then help with those barriers and challenges or if we can. So sort of a two-part question, which I guess gets to sort of Austin's comment. So yeah. Great. Well, Alex, you really hit the nail on the head. I think that one of the most significant barriers that we see folks facing is just, is stigma around living with lower income, around not having access to enough healthy food for you or for your family. And it's really, it's like this completely inaccurate concept of self-sufficient when what we actually know is that we all have a lot to give and that we all have a whole lot that we need and that none of us do this on our own. And whether that's receiving economic support and social support and all of the various like networks and webs that we have. But I think that is such a deep-seated one that is unfortunately so pervasive and causes a lot of barriers for folks coming first. And I'm very hopeful that the environment and very intentional efforts at the Immerse Survival Center and also having a variety of basic needs programs that are all available on a universal access model that anybody can have them and if anyone can sit down to lunch together and kind of being able to come together and community in that way is one really critical way that we're able to help break some of that. But we also see really critical barriers around transportation access. We see critical barriers around language access. And we also see barriers within, it's an overall barrier that is, I mean I guess all of these are very much on us, but there is a really huge piece in terms of making sure that we are providing an environment that is inclusive and equitable and positive and welcoming and really meets the diverse and important needs that folks have when coming somewhere. And I think that really ties in nicely with the question that Austin was getting, which is that members of the Immerse Survival Center community use the library for all sorts of things. Folks go for books and to borrow movies and kids toys and as a free place to be by yourself or with the family on a weekend or during the day as a warm place for someone who doesn't have a home or has very limited money to heat their house. And so it's really cold in the winter having that like warm place to be either by themselves or with others is an incredibly critical service. Access to bathrooms, access to computers, access to community programs. And so when I think about the ways that the Immerse Survival Center provides some of those similar functions, we really have a critical need to make sure that we are centering lots of different experiences in our whole community in terms of all of the different offerings that are available, whether that's the types of food that we have in the food pantry for grocery shopping and the types of programming and the types of activities and welcoming spaces for folks with kids and welcoming spaces who really need a warm place to be for the full day while they're in from the cold. So I think there's lots of those different pieces, but that's definitely a component of the library services that I'm very aware of in terms of folks who are that we know about the Immerse Survival Center really relying on those functions of the library services. Thanks. Judith, I know you had sort of talked about the fact that you started in the basement of the Jones and if we go forward with the renovation and expansion, you'll be coming back to the Jones and I think that leads into some of your challenges that you are dealing with. So I'll let you speak a little bit about sort of the barriers and challenges for providing your service. Okay, we're going to start off with Penny who's going to speak to this because yesterday I asked Penny what she felt like the biggest barrier was and I really liked what her answer was. Penny, do you want to address that for the literacy project? You got to unmute. That, you know, it's just important that we have a place for us to go to and, you know, for us to be able to call it our own and, you know, there's young people out there who need the literacy project too and that it's just nice to just not just to just to make it our own and just to be able to study there and know that you can go there and and they provide such really good things and I just feel that it's important to have an Amherst. Thanks. Thank you. So the market rate for rentals in Amherst is not something that we can afford as a small nonprofit. In North Hampton, we're in a city-owned building and they do not charge market rate that they have and it's an educational center where those ESOL classes and our adult literacy and GED classes are in that building. But so in Amherst, since our start in the Jones basement, we've been kind of vagabonds going from one place to the other and so we are, of course, we feel the wonderful promise to be able to engage more fully with the Jones library for all the reasons that Lev mentioned, you know, as but also because we are all about books. That's our thing and so, you know, the possibility to have a place to call our home at the Jones library would be very wonderful. So, you know, that's our biggest barrier. As Penny said, when we go back in person or people of all ages to be able to walk through our doors and feel like this is home and the way we run our classes is students and teachers participate together. We don't have a top-down model. Everybody's learning together and to have a dedicated space would be incredible. Go ahead, Penny. Yeah, and also, I mean, we pretty, basically, we follow the ASL curriculum, but we're putting our own spin on it. You know, like, we, like, we learn all about the government this semester and, like, what the White House was about and the select, you know, what was going on there and usually, you know, a lot of people don't want to know about that, but we all, as a class, we all wanted to know who we were voting for and what we were, what our representatives were going to fight for us and, and you can't do that. Any, you, you can only can do that at the Livesey Project. So, it's important for us to have our own space. Thanks. Thanks. So, Lynn, I'm going to finish up with you in terms of challenges, barriers, in terms of you being able to provide service to your students and the people who, who come. Okay, well, I could go on and on about the pandemic and remote instruction, but I'm not going to. I will just say that remote instruction is not ideal for language education. It's pretty difficult and the beginning level students suffer a lot. I had a class for elderly immigrants who, they were beginning literacy and language levels and they wanted to become citizens, which is a big challenge, but I had a class up and running. I had developed the curriculum and I was hoping to pass it off to a volunteer at some point. And that all came crashing down when the pandemic hit, because I could not get these elderly students to use remote technology. So that, that class is on hold for now, but I will say that even before the pandemic, it was a challenge, because I couldn't get a volunteer with the right skill set to teach that class, and I didn't have enough hours to teach the class and run the one-to-one program that's just, you know, the, the demands have been growing every year. So that's, that's been a big challenge and also space for one-to-one tutoring. We have at the library three small rooms for tutoring and at certain times of the day, they're all in use and I have to farm student tutor pairs out to more public places in the library or coffee shops downtown. And that's not really ideal because, well, there's two reasons, because the students oftentimes want to have confidential conversations with their tutors. They talk about, you know, family matters and things that they don't really want everybody passing by to hear about. And also the tutors encourage the students to take risks as they're learning language. That's making mistakes as part of the language learning process and nobody wants to make mistakes where people are going to hear them. So having a little bit more space for one-to-one tutors would really denies. And I've heard the suggestion that the ESL services should be relocated to another site to make room for other library services. And this is my response to that. We aim to invite newcomers into the local community and make sure that they're included in the community of library patrons. Our message is, you belong here. We value you. We welcome you among us. And by maintaining the ESL services within the main library building, we communicate that message clearly in an unambiguous way. You belong here. We value you. We welcome you among us. Shifting services for immigrants and only immigrants to an auxiliary space apart from the other library services would send the opposite message. And I think that would be really unfortunate. Thanks. So I had more to ask, but there's only six minutes left. We did have one question in the chat. Somebody said, thanks to each and every one of you for your tremendous service to create a community where all residents can thrive. How many people are utilizing each of the three services every year? And how do you let people know about your services? So, Lev, I'll just keep going, start with you. Yeah. Prior for the last number of years, the Amherst Survival Center has served just over 6,000 individuals a year and about 42,000 visits or so. We are anticipating or with the numbers that we're seeing currently, we're estimating that that will be more than 7,000 this year and certainly with more 50% increase roughly with our food pantry programs. And how do people know about our services? Word of mouth is definitely our number one, folks who come to the Amherst Survival Center, bring friends, bring neighbors, bring family, tell people about it, etc. We also have done some advertising on buses, flyers, and laundromats. We're really excited about a new collaboration with the Jones where we are sending Amherst Survival Center bookmarks in each of the books that they're distributing with Curveside to get that more broadly out into the community, getting to speak at various community groups, as well as outreach through a lot of community organizations, going to literacy project classes and talking to students, getting information to school nurses, getting information to all the mentors working with big brothers, big sisters, etc, etc, etc. So lots of different ways that we're have historically gotten the word out and are really working to increase that now. Thanks. Judith, pass it off to you. Okay, so we have between 1560 students a year in Amherst, and that's full enrollment for us. We keep our classes small for instruction. It works out the best that way. And we collaborate with Amherst Human Service Network, and of course with the Survival Center and ESOL programs in Amherst and word of mouth in terms of getting the word out. We also send home flyers with kids in school to reach their parents who might need more education in order to help their kids with the homework. So we try to reach out speaking in the community, etc. And I just want to make sure we're at the very end tonight. So I just want to make sure I get to thank the Jones Library. Can I do that now? I wanted to thank Alex and Sharon and the trustees for having us today because especially in the light of the horrific events yesterday at the Capitol, to give us the safe space for a forum to talk about equity and inclusion is really meaningful to I think all of us here today. So thank you. Thank you. Thanks. So Lynn, I'm going to finish up with you. How many people you have that are taking services and classes and things? And how do you get the word out? I'll try and make it quick then. I estimate that we have about 200 students a year between one-to-one tutoring and conversation partners. And in addition to that, we have right now four conversation circles. And in normal times, we would get participation about I'd say about 10 in each circle and we run them 52 weeks a year. And we help a lot of people with information on citizenship. But the students that get one-to-one instruction and probably would not pass their citizenship test without that, maybe around 70 year. And word of mouth is also very powerful. We've been around long enough that older immigrants know to tell the newer ones to come to Jones Library. And all the other agencies in town are really great about referring students to us as well as employers and neighbors. Well, I want to say thank you. I could talk about this for like another three hours, but Austin has told me if I don't stop at 5.30, I'm never allowed to moderate again. So thank you everybody for commenting so much. I think for me, I really love the collaboration that helps happens between our entities. I think it's important. I think that we have a lot of overlap in the populations and patrons and people that we serve in the community that we serve. And I think that we only it's stitching in fabric that makes it all stronger. And I think it's all important. And I really appreciate everything that you did. I appreciate you taking the time. Penny, you're amazing. Thank you so much for coming. I really, really appreciate you. Yeah. In fact, I have I have ideas about that poetry book that Judith and I are going to talk about in terms of collaboration. So Alex, thank you a lot for assembling this group and for moderating. I think it's really appropriate to say as bad as yesterday was hearing about the work that you do and the commitment lifts my spirits. Amherst is a richer in every sense of the word place for the work that you do and for the people who you serve. So thank you for that. Trustee, it's now time to adjourn. So I'm going to ask for a vote to adjourn by voice, Alex. Before I vote to adjourn, somebody wants to know how they can volunteer at all these organizations. So if we can somehow include that either somehow we can wrap it up. That would be, I don't know how we do that, but I just wanted to acknowledge somebody who loves on it. There you go. As we're adjourning, Judith, if you want to type in and if you want to type in. So I move to adjourn. I agree. Tammy, I agree. And Penny, it's nice to see you again. You take care. Sorry, Bob. You're muted, Bob. I second the motion and agree. Thank you. And Austin, I vote to adjourn. And again, with thanks, everybody stay safe. Thank you all. Stay well. Thank you. Bye. Thank you. Bye. Thank you.