Join the Ribbon Cutting Ceremony for the NEW West Philadelphia Library!

The West Philadelphia Alliance for Children will unveil a new library at Andrew Hamilton Elementary on Tuesday, February 3rd at 11:00am. This is big news for the public elementary school, which has been without a library to serve their 600 students for the last four years.

 

With a new vision and leadership, the West Philadelphia Alliance for Children (WePAC) is embarking on a promising future for youth residing in the West Philadelphia neighborhoods. Tuesday’s Hamilton library opening will mark the 13^th reopened library the nonprofit has operated. The newest library will replace the previous one which held tattered and outdated encyclopedias. Overall, 70 percent of the collection needed to be replaced during the renovation process.

“We don’t want students to be learning incorrect or outdated information,” said Sarah Joseph, the library program manager at WePAC.

Since November, Joseph and a team of volunteers have logged more than 350 hours cataloging titles, printing barcodes, and completing “all the necessary steps to get the library fully operational,” she said.

WePAC estimates that the annual investment to operate a library is $20,000, a cost that the organization does not pass on to the school. Once it is open, WePAC volunteers will run a library program for each class in the school, focusing heavily on kindergarten through fourth grade.

WePAC began as a grassroots urban ministry project led by Bryn Mawr Presbyterian Church, along with other civic groups, and first placed volunteers in a school library in 2003.  The recipe for investment, said David Brown, the executive director of WePAC, looked at school leadership; the state of the physical space; the quality of the existing book collection; WePAC’s ability to deploy volunteers in the school; and the existence or potential for quality community partnerships

Roughly 20 schools are currently on its waiting list, but despite the demand, Brown acknowledged that students deserve more than what WePAC alone can offer.

“We’re a band-aid, we’re using volunteers to run these one- to two- day a week programs, and we know that our kids need a whole lot more, Brown asserted.”

Although, there is still significant work that needs to be done, this grand-opening is one more opportunity to empower students with the knowledge and support that is vital in childhood development.

You can help elementary school students reach their full potential by volunteering with WePAC. Click here to learn more. 

The work of the Greater Philadelphia Cultural Alliance is made possible through the generous support of committed individuals and institutions.