The Biblioteca de Susana
Para Ninos
Para Ninos
Suzanne's Library for Children
All it took was one visit to Costa Rica for Ron and Suzanne Yankowski to decide to retire from their jobs, sell their home in Florida and move to that Central American country permanently. They spent several months looking for a home and finally settled in Carbonal de Grecia, a farming community located in the mountains of the western central valley, about one hour away from San Jose. As Suzanne describes it:
“Carbonal is a small coffee-sugar cane town which has one convenience store … a few shops to repair cars and trucks, a chicken producer, a chicken manure enterprise, a store that sells tires, an elementary school, a church, an alcoholic anonymous building, a bar, and a salon for community parties. There are about 150 houses. Most of the people are related to each other in some way, to the point that if they are looking for a marriage partner, they need to go to the next mountain. The city of Grecia is about three miles away and that is where most people go to shop.”
The Yankowskis were quickly welcomed into the community and soon Suzanne was asked by some of the local children if she would help them learn English. She agreed and, before she knew it, Suzanne had 15 children coming to her house for lessons each Friday. The response was so overwhelming that she had to turn many others away. Suzanne was impressed with the kids’ desire to learn and so was surprised to learn that the local school had no textbooks or library. Instead, teachers wrote lessons on blackboards and the children copied those lessons into their notebooks. Furthermore she found that there were no libraries in the area at all for young children. According to Suzanne:
“Gradually an idea was born that we might have a children’s lending library at our home. A friend visiting from England gave us $150 to get the ball rolling. We bought used children’s books on e-bay and had them delivered to a friend in the United States. Gradually as various people visited they would bring down some of the books in their suitcases. Our friends started looking around for books in Spanish at garage sales and came up with a few in that manner…
As the interest grew, I allowed the English students to take out books on Fridays when they had their classes and the other kids to take them out on Saturday mornings. I would remind them that these were not gifts, and needed to be returned in a week in order to get another book. Most of the kids were good about this and returned the next week promptly. A few did not. One boy, who was deaf, refused to give the book back because it was the only one he wanted! (As an aside, we were later able to get hearing aids for that boy, through networking.) Currently we have 35 children who use the library regularly.”
The pictures
on this page show some of the kids in Suzanne’s library which is in currently her sewing room. In fact, the popularity of the library was so great that the Yankowskis decided that they needed more space. So, they took $5,000 out of their savings and built an addition to hold more books and serve more children. The addition was recently completed and they have scheduled its grand opening for April 11th. Several local officials and the American Ambassador to Costa Rica, Peter Cianchette and his family, will attend the event.
Suzanne’s idea seems to be catching on: another American, living in a nearby town, is visiting the Yankowskis to see if she can do the same thing in her town.
This story has led Bridge To Action to see if we could help acquire and deliver books to the Yankowskis. If you think this is a worthwhile cause and would like to help, here are some things you can do:
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Contact us at xxx if you have new or used Spanish language books for Suzanne’s library. We will arrange to get them to her.
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Contact us if you are travelling to Costa Rica and are willing to take books with you.
The Yankowskis will arrange to pick them up when you arrive.
Click here to see the list of books they are looking for. Check back: more will be added!
Contact us if you would like to donate money to acquire books.
To see these pictures full size:
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