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 News from Around Banderas Bay | December 2005 
The ABC's of the Bucerias Children's Library
 Harold Sokolove - PVNN
| | Charting the fundraising efforts. | 
| | Library secretary Santiago Alvarado and Treasurer Rita Kollock selling tickets. | 
| | Recent photo of the building progress. |
Puerto Vallarta - Right now it's just a non-descript concrete block building on the edge of Bucerias - but if Rita Kollock and her optimistic group of volunteers have their way, it will eventually be the new home of the Bucerias Children's Library.
It all began when Bea Bender moved from Vallarta to Bucerias and talked to the women's reading club there about her dream of having a children's library in her new town. The reading club members thought it was a wonderful idea, so a meeting was scheduled for 1997, and the Bucerias Children's Library project was born.
After a year of investigating, talking to officials and filling out paperwork, the Association Bahia de Banderas Cultural, A.C.(ABC, A.C.) was formed as a legally registered civil association in Mexico. Bea Bender died in 1999, but Bea's vision of a free public library for the children of Bucerias lives on in the goals of the Association.
The library group started with about a dozen energetic members. Today, Rita and her husband, Oliver, are two of the remaining group that started the library building project in 1997. "Over the years, there have been twenty-five or thirty people directly involved in the project, with all the comings and goings," says Rita, currently treasurer of the library group.
Since 1998, over $350,000 pesos have been raised, using a variety of fund raising tools. The most recent fund raiser, held December 6th, a cocktail party and "reunion" for snowbirds returning to Bucerias for the season, generated about $15,000 pesos and was attended by over 100 people. The party featured appetizers which were donated by local restaurants and a variety of beverages.
The Los Frijoleros duo and Bill Heintz each donated their musical talent. Yearly memberships to Friends of the Library were also offered at the party for $100 pesos, which provided the purchasers with a raffle ticket for prizes donated by local businesses.
Other fund raising projects over the years have ranged from selling everything from T-shirts to cookbooks and calendars. "The calendars, which have been sold yearly since 1998, are real popular," according to Rita. "Sales have climbed from just twenty-five the first year to over two-hundred so far this year."
Donations have also come in the form of a computer that was given about five years ago by a family who had heard about the library project and gave the equipment in memory of a deceased relative. Rita added, "We have received several helpful personal donations over the years, including one from Bubba and the Bottomfeeders, a well-known local band that raises money for charitable purposes."
And thinking back, Rita also remembers how the library started with just 200 books and now has accumulated over 2,500 children's books, just about all in Spanish. They are housed in a small building, on loan rent-free since 1999, from the local ejido at the corner of Av. Gonzales and Av. Mexico.
Now that the reunion party is over, Rita is looking ahead to the next fund raising opportunities: A Mexican Fiesta put on by the library group in February or March and the Vallarta Altruism Festival, a yearly event held in May, in which the library is invited to participate.
It is estimated that about $300,000 pesos more is needed to complete the 2-story library building, $200,000 pesos alone to finish off the ground floor for use while the upper floor of the building is being worked on. $95,000 pesos were allocated in 2003 to purchase the lot where the building now sits on Camino Viejo al Valle, near the government primary school and Colegio Bucerias, a private school.
There are currently no volunteers to keep the library building open. It is estimated that around 15 children per day would use the facility when it was available. Rita is hoping a promised grant from the municipal government will solve that problem. It is hoped that a $1200 pesos-per-month salary allowance will permit the library supporters to hire at least a part-time librarian to keep the doors of the library open several days each week.
Fulfilling another goal of ABC, A.C., would be having enough volunteers to keep the library open more hours and to assist the children who come to visit. Rita's ultimate goal is probably pretty obvious by now, "I'd like to see the bottom floor finished by this time next year, maybe even earlier, so we can move into our new building as soon as possible and go from there."
For more information about the Children's Library project and to find out how you can help bring the joys of reading to the children of Bucerias, contact Oliver & Rita Kollock at okollock@orcomm.net |
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