By Noel Waghorn
A shuttle service pilot project that transports low-income families to local libraries will operate until August due to donations, fundraising and leftover funds, city officials say.
“We’re alive and kicking,” says Alison Cullingham, co-ordinator of the project for the city. “It’s just pleasant.”
The Ottawa Public Library shuttle project is only the second of its kind in North America. It was supposed to end last December.
The funding for the extension of the program is coming from a number of sources, including leftover funds from the city’s poverty initiatives program.
Because of staffing changes, the shuttle started in June of last year instead of the planned February 2002 date. The unused money from the first three months of the program is being used this year.
In addition, the Ottawa Citizen donated part of the proceeds from its Raise a Reader literacy campaign to the shuttle.
Barbara Herd, director of children’s services for the Ottawa library, says this donation was enough to fund the program for two extra months.
Herd says the library also kicked in money from its own fund-raising campaigns, allowing the shuttle to continue until the end of the summer.
Tammy Hall, a Centretown resident, has been riding the shuttle with her two boys since September.
“I think it’s wonderful,” says Hall. “It makes it so much easier on any parent who would like to get their child to the library but find it hard to get out the door.”
Hall credits the program with helping her two-and-a-half and four-year-old children learn to enjoy reading.
“They love the books,” Hall says. “I love to see their faces light up when they see a book they want to read.”
The library shuttle picks up low-income families in the Ottawa area and brings them to one of five library branches around the city. The families were recruited through the city’s child care services department and other various public health programs. The shuttle makes up to 10 trips a week.
Cullingham says the families have checked out over 1,000 books and videos since the start of the project.
She says parents see the project as a great way to spend time with their kids.
“Just about all of them found that the way they were spending time with their children was better than other things they had been doing.”
Hall agrees. “I love to spend the time with my kids,” she says. “I’d like them to have an interest in [books] instead of sitting in front of the tube.”
Since the program began last June, Cullingham says she has 40 families signed up, even though the program has the capacity for about 80 families.
“It takes a really long time to do the recruitment,” says Cullingham. “I think that over time if we can keep this going on for long enough we’ll end up with a waiting list.”
After August, however, the program’s future is uncertain.
Library board chair Rick Chiarelli says city council has other library funding priorities, but there has been “sponsorship interest” from corporations in Ottawa, such as the Ottawa Citizen.
So far, no company has come forward help, says Herd.
“I’m just hoping that things will fall into place in the next few months.”
Cullingham though, has faith the program will get sponsorship.
“We like the project, we don’t want it to die,” she says.
“There are people in place that are going to find money to keep it going.”