Rose Treviño Memorial Scholarship

Patricia Lyons 

School: University of North Carolina
Community: Charlotte, NC

Patricia Lyons has worked extensively with preschool children and believes that services should continue beyond the library building. One of the letters of recommendation stated “Our branch [library] is located in an area with many Spanish speakers, but we had never been able to make good inroads into that community. Patty changed all that, immediately getting to know the families in the neighborhood, working with the teachers and ESL specialist at the elementary school across the street, and forming a strong partnership with La Escuelita, a Spanish-language preschool a block down from the library.”  Patricia also started evening ESL classes and collaborated with the local community college to have intermediate classes on the weekends. She currently works at the Charlotte Mecklenburg Library as a library assistant.

REFORMA Scholarship

Amanda Toledo

School:  University of Washington
Community:  Pasadena, CA

Amanda Toledo has worked supporting Latinx and Spanish speakers as a library associate in Altadena, California. She started programs beyond Spanish storytimes to include movie nights in Spanish. She has plans to support families by creating resources for Spanish-speaking parents to help their children who need to complete homework in English. Amanda sees assisting LatinX patrons as not just programming but actual engagement and inclusion because, as she states in her personal statement, “As much as I love being able to assist my Spanish speaking patrons, I know that the look of relief on their faces shouldn’t be there. They should not have to feel relieved at all to receive services they need at their library.”
 

Hope Saldivar

School: San Jose State University
Community:  Davis, CA

Hope Saldivar has promoted library services to rural, undocumented farmworkers and migrants in her community. She is a solo employee as a Library Associate of the Yolo County, CA Knight Landing branch, a predominantly rural area. She worked with the rural farmworkers’ schedules to allow them to attend classes and conversation groups in their town. She was awarded a grant to create the program “Bilingual Backpacks,” where Latina/o families can check out a backpack filled with 10 culturally-relevant books for three weeks to read at home. Hope has brought youth into the library by starting a Teen Night, and one of her recommenders pointed out her unique program of bringing a veterinary clinic to the library for free pet medical care for local residents. Hope is passionate about representation and does not want underserved communities to be overlooked.