Petition to Keep Chinese Story Time a free program at Arcadia Public Library 呼吁Arcadia图书馆保留免费”中文故事会”

[饱蠹阁]

Please sign the petition here: http://chng.it/ZgTRckHh

The Chinese Story Time is a weekly free program initiated by Dr. Zeng, Dr. Zhang, and a handful of enthusiastic volunteers, that teaches children (3 to 10 year old) the Chinese language and culture through storytelling, singing, dancing and drama, hosted at the Arcadia Public Library. The library management fully supported this program as long as it was free and volunteers can help. It became an instant success and attracted many families and even library directors from other neighboring cities.

As Arcadia is a city with over 60% Asian residents with majority being Chinese Americans, it is imperative that the city provides its residents and children a free bilingual and culture program. This type of crucial program has been missing for a long time until this summer.

However, recently after 10 successful sessions, the Arcadia Public Library announced they could no longer host the program due to various reasons such as staff cut, shortage of funds, schedule conflicts, insurance liabilities, volunteer background checks etc, which all sound like technical and resource issues. We later found out that they are actually replacing staff, not reducing them.

After numerous unsuccessful negotiations with the library management, we raised the issue in the city council meeting on 9/3/2019. As a result, the City Manager asked the Library Management to meet with us again to find a solution. The Library Director was resourceful enough to propose that we change the program into a fee based class in the community center. To many, this is against our initial vision to provide a free program to all kids who are interested in learning Chinese in our city. What’s more concerning is that the extra workload and responsibilities to organize such a class are beyond the volunteers’ capacity.

Like the Eisenhower Park protesters said, if Arcadia is an inclusive city, we welcome all types of people to use our park built with millions of Arcadians' tax money. It is not too much to ask the city and the Arcadia library to sponsor a program that at least 60% of its residents find necessary and valuable.

Where there is a will there is a way. We urge that the city staff to work more creatively and start finding true solutions for this humble request per our rights - Keep the Chinese Story Time in the library and make it a free program available to all kids in our city!

“中文故事会”是由曾博士和张博士以及一批热心公益、专业素质优秀的志愿者发起的免费传播中文使用中文的活动。活动在阿卡迪亚公共图书馆举办，每周一次、每次一小时，通过讲故事、唱歌、跳舞和戏剧等丰富多彩的形式，向3至10岁的孩子们传授中华语言和文化，吸引和推动孩子们进入中文文化语境，走向自然生动的中文表达。该项目向公众完全免费，在完全由志愿者群策群力的前提下，项目的启动曾经获得图书馆管理层的高度支持，馆里为“中文故事会”提供了儿童区最佳位置的活动空间，使得该活动一炮打响，不但吸引来了众多的家庭和孩子，也引起了周边城市图书馆馆长的关注。

阿卡迪亚是一个拥有超过60%的亚裔居民的城市，居民中大多数人是美籍华人。本市一直以来极为需要向居民尤其是儿童提供免费的中华语言和文化项目。遗憾的是，在“中文故事会“的诞生之前，这样的一个长期稳定的必备项目几乎一直是空白。

然而不幸的是，在该活动成功地举办了两个半月（10期）以后，阿卡迪亚图书馆宣布：由于裁员、资金短缺、时间表冲突、保险责任、志愿者背景调查等等问题和原因，他们不能再支持该项目。但这些听起来都是技术问题和资源问题。后来我们也得知他们并不是裁减员工，而只是更换员工。

与图书馆管理层多次沟通失败后，志愿者们于2019 年 9 月 3 日的市议会会议上发言寻求帮助。会议上，市政经理要求图书馆馆长，请她继续与志愿者们商讨，以寻求解决方案。图书馆馆长为此提出了另一个变通的建议-将该项目改为在社区中心（Arcadia Community Center)举办的向市民收费的课程。但是对许多人来说，这违背了为所有有兴趣在我们城市学习汉语的孩子提供免费课程的初衷。更重要的是，馆长建议的付费中文课程所带来的额外工作量和所需承担的责任已经超出了志愿者的能力范围。

正如上次议会会议上关于在艾森豪威尔公园兴建篮球场的倡议者所言，如果阿卡迪亚是一个兼容并包的城市，我们欢迎所有人使用用我们阿卡迪亚人数百万税金兴建的偏于一隅的公园。相对而言，我们要求阿卡迪亚图书馆向一个至少60%的居民认为有必要、有价值的活动提供场地和支持也是一个合情合理的要求，更何况只是每周一小时而已。

办法总比困难多。我们恳切敦促城市工作人员，积极寻找更具建设性方案，继续支持“中文故事会”在阿卡迪亚公立图书馆举办，并根据我们纳税人的权利，为这个基本的要求找寻真正长期有效解决对策，将“中文故事会”启动为我市公共图书馆的一个正式的、官方的免费公益项目，向我市所有孩子和家庭开放！

如果您支持这个呼吁，请在此签名：http://chng.it/ZgTRckHh

Rowena Zeng, Ph.D.; Yongping Zhang, Ph.D., P.E.

[Sophia]

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[饱蠹阁]

經過義工們的不懈努力，中文故事會(Chinese Story Time)可以在亞凱迪亞圖書館繼續辦下去了！

10/3/2019早上我們和城市經理、圖書館館長及社区中心主任一起開會討論，圖書館館長建議把中文故事會作為社區中心的課程之一，場地還在圖書館，和其它社區中心的課程不同的是，這門課將堅持我們的公益性質，不收任何費用，但參與的家庭需要在社區中心登記一下這門課程。具體的辦法社區中心主任會發郵件告知。

這裡要感謝市府、圖書館和社區中心對這個活動的最終支持。我們更要感謝在此過程中一直關心支持我們的朋友們，特別是那些在百忙之中幫我們簽署petition的鄰居們，因為有了你們的同心协力，我們這個社區才更加美好。