So far this summer we have contacted the Greenfield Library, Jones Library in Amherst, and the Tilton Library in South Deerfield via phone and email and let them know about our vision for an event and display there. We haven’t heard back from the Greenfield Library yet, however the Jones Library and Tilton Library are interested in working with us in the fall and we have meetings scheduled with them to discuss our ideas and show them our materials. While awaiting responses, we spent our time finding more books written by Puerto Rican authors. We’ve organized a selection of books for the first few months of the school year. One of these is “Hurricane: My Story of Resilience” by Salvador Gomez-Colon (a youth activist for Puerto Rico).
In a world where a very accessible platform for information is the internet, we realized a great way to expand our project is by creating a website. We hope this will allow people to connect with us from any location, as well as demonstrate our work to libraries and make it easy to stay updated on events.
We will be using the grant we received to purchase a domain for our website, as well as supply libraries with books. To reiterate what we mentioned in our original grant proposal from spring, purchasing books from Puerto Rican authors will benefit a wide variety of people. By providing these books to libraries, we are directly stimulating the Puerto Rican economy by sourcing our books from native authors. Meanwhile, the purpose of Snap and Adapt is also educating New England communities about our political climate with PR, environmental issues, and cultural differences that should be embraced. We hope that Puerto Ricans (especially children) will feel appreciated and make it easier to adapt to a change such as immigrating from the island to the mainland US.
The website will consist of links to purchase all the books that we display in the libraries, our missions statement, the libraries we have visited, and a list of places to donate.
What we need:
- Find three or four more books written by Puerto Rican authors
- Create website
Books:
- “Hurricane: My Story of Resilience” by Salvador Gomez-Colon
- “Puerto Rico Strong” by Hazel Newlevant (proceeds go to UNIDOS Disaster Relief & Recovery Program to Support Puerto Rico) https://hispanicfederationpuertorico.org/home
- “The Battle for Paradise: Puerto Rico takes on the Disaster Capitalists” by Naomi Klein (proceeds go to JunteGente, a gathering of Puerto Rican organizations resisting disaster capitalism and advancing a fair and healthy recovery for their island) juntegente.org
- “Felita” by Nicholasa Mohr
-Aaron Gibbons ’24 and Kathrine Margulis ’24