Libraries help young people in need of volunteer hours

Key Takeaways

In Miami-Dade County and much of Florida, students must complete volunteer hours to graduate. When the pandemic hit and everything ground to a halt, many requirements were waived but not volunteer hours. Parents and students desperate for volunteer opportunities found a powerful supporter in the community: The public library. In Miami-Dade County, two librarians came to the rescue: Ellen Book, branch manager of the Pinecrest Branch Library and Athanasia Fitos, branch manager of the Kendale Lakes Branch Library. Each created their own unique volunteer opportunities.

Book had a consistent and dedicated group of creative older residents coming to the library to weave mats out of plastic yarn or “plarn” for the homeless. The group, known as Helping Hands, won a NACo Achievement Award in the past for their work with the homeless. Plastic yarn turns about 75 plastic bags into a ball of yarn useful for weaving.

But both the volunteers and materials dried up when the pandemic forced some businesses to close. Parents and children kept reaching out to the library for opportunities, information and support. Eventually, Book had the idea of teaching youths via Zoom how to weave plastic yarn, which could then be distributed to the weavers after some time had passed for COVID safety. Over the yearlong program, 5,475 bags were turned into about 73 balls of plastic yarn and students earned 394 volunteer hours. Despite the struggles of the pandemic, the library was a beacon of creativity and a vital community hub.

The library has had further contact from groups including Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts looking to participate, a hairdresser accompanying those distributing the mats to give free haircuts to those in need, people and organizations looking to donate bags and more.

The program is especially beneficial to graduating students who are required to complete volunteer hours to graduate and be eligible for certain grant programs for those entering college. “We were basically trying to leverage and accommodate as much as possible so that students wouldn’t miss out on those qualifications in order to go forward with their education,” Book said.

Through the libraries’ work with Helping Hands, they have impacted “hundreds and hundreds” of lives. The library has received interest from all manner of people looking to learn how to make plastic yarn and weave mats from as far away as Peru, the Congo and Haiti.

Book even heard from a group that found the process of making mats using plastic yarn too slow, so they developed their own loom to speed up the process. Mats are six feet tall and three feet wide, at minimum, to accommodate the average male.

In Miami-Dade County’s Kendale Lakes branch, Fitos knew if the pandemic continued at length, her newly restarted young adult library advisory board would collapse, so she took action. Starting with six young adults volunteering on the board, Fitos and her youth services specialist paired with another librarian to keep the program alive by migrating it online.

Inspired by branch Zoom meetings, the youths involved pivoted from shelving and program prep to working on readers’ and program advisory work along with a gaming program.

“About six weeks into the pandemic was when we realized that the kids essentially lost everything,” Fitos aid. “They lost their social lives, they lost their school life and a couple of them lost their graduation. So, we recognized that there was also a social and an emotional toll happening.”

The team fought to keep connections alive through Zoom and WhatsApp, eventually involving 26 youths and much of the library staff. “They were communicating their small victories and it became a very positive support group,” she said. The programming continues now that the pandemic has lessened and there is more knowledge on how COVID spreads and what precautions are necessary. The library has adapted to incorporate hybrid options for their programming moving forward, increasing participation and availability.

Despite the struggles imposed and the rapid need to shift gears to accommodate online functionality, the libraries of Miami-Dade County kept pace with the needs of their community. “If you can remember from ‘Harry Potter,’ we kind of serve as the Room of Requirement for a lot of our community,” said Fitos.