Our History

In 2006 three friends, Roberta Gisea, Joyce Martin, and Mary Jo Cooney were
inspired to find a way to help the libraries in Rosarito, and "The Friends of the
Library (FOL)" came into being.
In 2007, the group established a Board of Directors with Joyce Martin as
President of the Friends of the Library’s first board. Our board continues to this
day and now consists of 11 board members.

Getting Started

Repairs First and foremost, FOL focused on helping the libraries with needed repairs.
Book collections Rosarito’s five library branches had reached a state of crisis. Government funds for books is minimal. So, Friends of the Library located discounted sources of high-quality Spanish books and put a substantial budget behind book purchases.

Donations
We often donate to help cover budget shortfalls in reading programs conducted by the Rosarito public libraries. One particular cultural study had no funds for tshirts and bus transportation to the culminating celebration. Friends of the Library stepped up with the donation, permitting the planned event to go forward.

Rosarito Lee (now Somos Lectores)
2013 marked the beginning of one of our most innovative program. It has expanded to take place in public and private schools throughout Rosarito Beach, occasionally extending to Tijuana and Ensenada. In this program, all participants read the same books and volunteer parents read and discuss with the children. School and individual contests (game shows, drawings, essays) that showcase comprehension and theme inferences occur and the program culminates at a huge community-wide reading celebration at a common festival.

Moms and Tots
The Moms and Tots program was organized in 2016 to encourage a love of books and good reading habits. Mothers read to the tots before conducting engaging activities with this group at a critical time in their development.

Extra fun with reading
In May 2017, author Kevin Gerard generously donated 50 copies of his book, El Dragón de Diego, for our library reading programs. We purchased additional copies for a six week reading program. 5th and 6th grade students were invited to read about a young Latino boy who wins the statue of a dragon in a school writing contest. Students rushed to sign up to read and discuss the book each week as well as create their own papier mache dragons. A panel of judges selected 3 winning entries for awards at the program finale at IMAC where the young readers met the author in person.

Tech for All
Our Tech Committee was formed in 2017 with the purpose of working with city and library staff to bring technology to all five Rosarito libraries. Within one short month, "Tech For All" in Denver helped us realize our goal with a promise of....

as many computers and peripherals as needed to supply five libraries in Rosarito, including installed software
a server to support computers

Tablets for all who complete computer training at the library (with no limit to how many, as long as Tech For All has them)

Pop Up Library Program
Access to books continued to be a big need in Rosarito. In 2018 only five branch libraries and zero bookstores were scattered throughout the center and surrounding hills of Rosarito. The majority of residents do not live near enough to one of the branches to walk there nor do they have car transport or easy public transport. Pop-up libraries began in Colonia Reforma and then moved on to other neighborhoods, serving more and more Rosarito children and adults.

The Bella Prize!
Dedicated to the Rosarito Lee programs, the yearly Bella Prize is awarded 3 levels: to an outstanding student in the Program, an outstanding teacher, and an outstanding school principal. This prize began in 2018 with a generous donation from the Sassali family from Denver -- who organized their community to support school reading programs for students in the city in which their adopted daughter was born.

Reading Corner
In January 2019, members designed a welcoming and colorful space in which to hold various cultural and reading-oriented activities for children in the Roasito area. in addition to being an inspiring place for young children and their parents, students stopped in to do homework, senior citizens sometimes read on the sofa and easy chairs, and Friends of the Library volunteers held read aloud times.

Bookmobile
Pop-up Libraries and Reading Corners were nowhere near enough to provide literature to the children of Rosarito. Funding campaigns resulted in the purchase, outfitting, and stocking of our own bookmobile in 2019. An active Program Coordinator, Bookmobile Manager, and group of volunteers keeps reading promotion alive. Since the first days, we have expanded to other remote hillside neighborhoods where, for a few hours, we have storytelling, talk about reading for pleasure, and let children and parents discover the variety of books we have for them. We return biweekly for borrowers to return the books they have borrowed and select new ones to read.
In January 2020 we added visits to some of the schools which hold our "Rosarito Reads" reading programs. These school reading programs are designed to excite students to read, so we want to be there with the bookmobile to offer a rich supply of reading material for them.
Of course we want to increase our locations and number of stops and are constantly working to increase our book offerings as well as programs that promote reading.