So I'm going to go ahead and get our recording started here. I'm going to introduce quickly our presenters and we'll hear from them all later as we move through the session. We have Falena Hand, Community Initiatives Specialist at the west Philadelphia neighborhood libraries. Mary Marques the South Cluster library coordinator. Gaspar Santos is Community Initiatives Specialist at the northeast Philadelphia libraries. Kate Goodman as a Community Initiatives Specialist from the north Philadelphia libraries. Lynn Williamson is the chief of neighborhood library services division and she's going to be leading us through today's session along with Falena. They have some excellent questions for our panel. But we're going to have Lynn get us started. Welcome, Lynn. Thank you so much for being here. >> Thank you, Jennifer. Good afternoon, everyone. Thank you for joining us today to talk about connecting with our communities. This webinar is meant to give a taste of the curriculum that the Free Library of Philadelphia has been developing for the past three years. With the support of an IMLS Laura bush 21st century librarian grant and with seven partner libraries across the U.S. and Canada. Previous community engagement were designed for administrators or were expensive training sessions. We put together this curriculum with the gracious support of IMLS with frontline library staff in mind. It will be freely available to all libraries in August. This curriculum is designed to be accessible to all library workers and is adaptable for board members, volunteers, or friends. The curriculum includes four workshops of four hours each and is adaptable to the online training environment. This webinar is part 2 of the three-part series as Jennifer mentioned. We will not be summarizing the entirety of the four-hour training in one hour. In particular, with the content matter of implicit bias and communication, that would be doing a real disservice is to the topic, as well as to the learning of participants. Our goal today is to give an overview and share two of the most well-received exercises in our second workshop called, effective communication. The exercises are my experience, my lens, and the iceberg. The curriculum for workshop number 2 ends with what we call a take and turn which Jennifer mentioned, to take what we talked about and turn it into action. We'll talk a little bit more about the take and turn in a few minutes. We learned when piloting this curriculum to value and hold up the skills and connections that our colleagues already have. As staff members and colleagues have expertise, we encourage them as participants to share their experiences with colleagues that are new to engagement. In particular, with the subject of implicit bias. Some participants may have been through training to help them understand the impact of their own biases. This training is designed to encourage participation from those who are already familiar with these concepts to open the door to understanding for those who may be learning these concepts for the very first time and to develop an appreciation of how our personal limitations might impact our communications and conversations about library work. In this workshop in particular, effective listening and honoring the life experiences of all participants is critical to opening the door to shared learning. Communitycentered libraries require staff to form and sustain relationships with community partners. A key to any relationship is communication. Therefore, the effective communication workshop addresses fundamental ideas about effective communication with a variety of audiences. Participants reflect on the life experiences and lenses that impact how they communicate. They review strategies for effective communication, practice behaviors that demonstrate active listening, and develop the skill of open-ended questioning. By the end of the workshop, participants leave with the knowledge of what they need to do on an individual level to facilitate deeper discussions and stronger connections with community members. Can you think of a time when communication with patrons led to a change or improvement in programming or processes at your library? We'd love to hear some of your ideas in chat. If you have got your fingers warmed up and ready. Jennifer, do you see anything coming in through chat? >> Nothing yet. That's a big question. So it might take a couple of seconds here. Somebody said yes. I don't see any at this point. Sometimes in our library we get ideas for programming from patrons. Oh, restroom directional signs. That is a good specific example. A reminder to folks to be sure that you post to everyone. That way, we'll make sure the panel sees your posts. >> I see some coming in now. >> World cafe-style program led to a book club. >> So fast -- I can't read. >> Let's see. Family activity. Activities for families with babies. Oh, students sometimes need a softer approach to open up. In our adult literacy program, giving our students a platform to express what would be useful for them helps lead us as staff to better programs. >> Changing table in the men's room. >> That's a great one. >> Grandparents bringing kids to storytimes. These folks sound like they have their eyes open and are definitely tracking community behavior and making decisions with communication from their patrons. >> Thank you, participants. The exercises used in our workshop foster passionate discussions on topics that are deeply personal to participants. The facilitator guide of our curriculum provides framing language for the discussion, helping the facilitator to be more prepared to guide conversations, validate participants' experiences, and strictly enforce ground rules, which are essential for conversations to be constructive, honest, and safe for participants. Ground rules are key in forming a safe zone where participants feel comfortable enough to share and learn from one another. In workshop number 1 of our curriculum, we devote 35 minutes to establishing the rules for each group and creating the buy-in from participants to help everyone feel conferring. It's important to take time to revisit those ground rules for these topics. Our cultures, races, faiths, socioeconomic statuses, neighborhoods, and life experiences, among other factors, shape the lenses with which we view the world. These lenses then shape the way in which we communicate, whether we recognize it or not. How do we uncover what's happening behind our lenses? One method is through looking inside ourself, analyzing our thoughts, biases. Looking inward helps us understand how our lenses and life experiences impact the way we communicate with our library communities and our communities at large. We all see situations differently as a result of our very lenses and life experiences. Take a minute to create a list of words or short phrases that you associate with the phrase "myself ". This list is for you. You don't need to share it in the chat. Think of words or short phrases rather than complete sentences or explanations. You can use any words, labels, job titles, adjectives that you want to use to describe your own life. Some examples might be, sports therapist, divorced, African-American, bilingual, liberal, mother, gender fluid. I'll give you a second to think and to write, scratch a few things down. As you're writing these things down, choose one of the words or a set of a few of the words from your list that you associate with the very deep life experience that you have had. For example, maybe you wrote "mother" or biracial. This is a primary lens through which you see the world. If you would like, you can share this in the chat. This life experience has a major impact on you and has allowed you to have a level of empathy and connection with people who experience the wonderland in a similar way. Thank you, participants. Latinx. Strong woman. Immigrant. Plus sized. Black. Autistic. Student. Thank you all. The life experience or experiences that you choose has a major -- that you chose has a major impact on you and has allowed you to connect to and have a level of empathy for people who have similar experiences. Your own lived experiences may also be a limitation or bias in your understanding of others' experiences if you don't take your own lens into account. We know that communication is complex. The way people communicate and the beliefs that we have are deeply layered and our life experiences impact how we connect and communicate with others. People with whom we're communicating also have a lived experience that they are bringing to our interactions and they also have lenses through which they see the world. Community engagement asks us to collaborate with diverse groups of people from our communities, some of whom may have very different life experiences than us. To communicate clearly, we must be aware of the many layers and hidden experiences that impact communication. At this point I'm going to reintroduce Falena Hand, who Jennifer mentioned earlier as the Community Initiatives Specialist here in west Philadelphia. Falena builds partnerships and connections with local community-based organizations and she's going to talk to us about the iceberg. >> Thank you for that introduction, Lynn. Good afternoon to all of our attendees. Help us to visual each person as an iceberg. You'll notice there are aspects of a person that we can see which we may not make accurately because there are assumptions we make about appearances. Our life experiences and worldview causes to approach certain people in situations with assumption. These assumptions are often generalizations about a group of people and can be false. Going beneath the surface and connecting with individuals gives us opportunity to challenge false assumptions. The curriculum allows us to delve deeper by small group discussions where we discuss challenging our own assumptions. Awareness is key and a great first start in building deeper connections with our patrons. You'll notice there are aspects of a person that we can see which we may or may not see accurately because of assumptions we make about appearances. These items above the waterline, such as race, age, and gender expression are what we can observe through looking or listening. There are sometimes, but not always, accurately interpreted. Perhaps you have had an experience in which someone made an incorrect assumption about your age or your gender. There are also other core values and individual characteristics. Below the waterline are things we can't see, like education, housing status, wealth, religion. What's in your iceberg? Think of three items that lie above the surface and five items that lie below the surface. Looking at your iceberg, which idea or ideas did you write that you are certain impact your communication with others? I'll take a brief moment to let our attendees react to that. Jennifer, do we have any responses in the chat? >> Yes. We've got a lot. I'm so impressed by everyone sharing. Let's see. We've got -- well, my white skin shows. My ADHD does not. Let's see. We've got some -- looks like the above and below, some are mixed. Survivor, pan sexual, ADHD. Earlier I saw caregiver. I thought that was a really good one that is below the line sometimes and above the line if you're visibly in that situation. Let's see. Yeah, looks like more people are putting stuff from below the surface. White, redhead, 40-ish. Good points, mental illness can be above and below the line. Anxiety may be more below. Wow. Lots of really profound and intense lived experience that folks carry in their iceberg. Hearing loss. >> Thank you so much to our attendees. I see awesome responses. Hearing loss, adopted. First generation college graduate. Above purple hair and glasses. Below, anxiety. So thank you so much, everyone, for just being so open with us today and sharing. Moving on, what are some areas of common interests when you're speaking with people? For your own reflection, I would like to also ask our attendees are there aspects of your iceberg that people rarely see? Is there something below the surface that you feel most people misinterpret when they meet you? Again, I'd like to ask you to take this with you after our webinar today to reflect on. Moving forward, I'd like to move on to our panel discussion and introduce our panelists. Mary Marques works as the South Cluster coordinator at the Free Library of Philadelphia. With 15 years of experience, one of her work objectives is to develop intergenerational and multicultural programs for the community. Chair of the leadership institute. Gaspar Santos is the Community Initiatives Specialist at the Free Library of Philadelphia. He's amazed at the huge energy the community can create. Kate Goodman is the Community Initiatives Specialist with Free Library of Philadelphia. Mary, why is it important to keep the iceberg in mind when performing daily roles at the library and how does it impact communication? >> Thank you. For me, communication equals communicative relations. We share our experiences verbally and also nonverbally. We need to be very mindful about the knowledge that we bring into the conversation that can be related with cultures, languages, context in order to develop this two-way communication. I do believe that librarians and paraprofessionals need to see themselves as a cross-cultural ambassador because now more than everwe are living in a -- ever we are living in a interglobal city -- area that is deeply connected locally and also with other communities. When I am establishing this type of communication, I practice what I call the three Cs. I connect, I collaborate, and I communicate. In the first photo a group of librarians created the concept of the world traveling trunks. What you are seeing is my personal trunk from Peru. The idea of this, the celebration of the cultures around the globe while enriching our local community here in Philadelphia. We are trying to be -- cultural awareness and also embracing diversity in a cross-cultural environment, helping not only children, but also families getting these cross-cultural social skills that are connected with history -- in the second photo I participated in a community event, a Mexican celebration held every year that Mexico, 62 victory over the French at the battle of Puebla. Dressed with traditional costumes, they were dancing all the way around Washington avenue, inviting members of the community to join this collective celebration. The community -- a healthy community is dynamic, organic, and personal. We do share cross-intergenerational communities. >> Thank you for sharing that, Mary. I'd like to ask what physical characteristics above the waterline may be misinterpreted and why? >> I have coordinated a program that was called the South Philadelphia Book Fiesta. This was born in 2019 -- at the Free Library of Philadelphia. This is events celebrated the successes of neighborhoods that really wanted to create new spaces, a common area with new spaces in which the people would interact and develop a conversation. Book Fiesta was the result of many months of planning and also follow it on the table. Community leaders -- they tried to create a program for the community. The goal of this South Philadelphia Book Fiesta was to build strong relationship with the communities in that area. One of the brainstorming sessions, one of the community members brought to the table the argument that community members do not cross neighborhoods. If you walk around south Philly -- aren't really the hallmark of the community. We created a passport because when you have a passport, curiosity and exploring and we really wanted to break the stigma that neighbors do not cross neighborhood lines. And part of this program was the Queen Memorial Library created the guided art tour and started the neighborhood -- in there, the community was going to meet and participate in games, music, study times. But during the walk tour, the librarian started to explain to us what -- one is the relationship with the community. I do believe that having those connections with the community and building those relationships with community leaders, that is the main goal of going under the iceberg. >> Thank you so very much, Mary, for sharing with us. And now I'd like to move the conversation over to Gaspar Santos. How do our experiences influence biases, both positively and negatively? >> I think I'm going to use food. Food is something that we all eat and tends to bring people together. I think it's an interesting example to highlight different experiences with something that, you know, we all do in common. When the fufu challenge went viral on TikTok this year, I mean, this reminded me of some experiences that were not really good lessons. For those who may not be familiar, fufu is a staple in most south -- most African countries south of the Sahara. It has a dull-like texture, usually made from corn, YAM. It's usually sour. When I was living in west Africa, I remember a particular company dinner in which the colleague came up to his AN GOLan colleague and he was apologetic for his dislike for the popular national staple. But, you know, the good thing was that his colleague actually pointed out that he was not eating it the right way and she gave him a suggestion. Once he tried it with the suggestion, it was like he discovered a newfound love for a dish after a few sour experiences. Usually when I'm out in the community representing the library neighborhood events, someone would ask how relevant is the library today? Books on tinder -- everything online. For me, it's a cue to explain the various services and programs our libraries perform and encourage them to visit the library in a new way. It's another example of how someone's experiences with the library may not be updated. >> Awesome. Thank you so much for sharing. I can see in the comments that you are making a lot of us hungry by sharing this awesome food example with us. Gaspar, I'd like to say that I think you and I can agree that people reveal more about themselves when they are comfortable and feel welcomed and valued. What are some of the specific strategies your library employs to create an inclusive and welcoming culture that shows patrons they are valued? >> OK. You know, I'll probably start off with free library is on the front line with communities, facing the city's challenges jointly. We also serve as access point for other government and community services and resources. But some of the main ways I see our libraries creating the welcoming and inclusive spaces are use either visual, lots of multilingual signs, images that reflect the diversity in the community -- we try to have something for everybody. The personal interaction I think is really the trust-building aspect. You know, how we greet some of the community members when they come in, our attitude, our resourcefulness, going above and beyond. You know, Philadelphia is a city with a digital literacy challenge. And a lot of my colleagues, they go way over and beyond in helping a lot of people log in or create even log-ins to programs they have never used before. Some have zero experience in using a computer. I mean, our programming tends to reflect, you know, what the community wants. So we try and keep it relevant. We also try and keep those channels of feedback, input, and continue improvement anything that we're doing. One important thing is engaging communities. If I follow up on the part of asking for feedback, getting input on ideas, but also, you know, working for groups. Our fringe groups tend to be our voice in the community and our biggest advocate. But they can also serve as our ambassadors and also get input -- input and feedback from the community that we usually wouldn't get on our own. But we also participate in neighborhood events and activities. That's usually opportunity to get out and about and just remind people that we're here, our programs, what we actually do in the community. Try and update some of these misconceptions of people -- that people have of the library that they went to maybe a couple of years ago. So it's always process of continuous improvement. But one thing I have had the privilege of participating in is library refurbishments. These create shared common experience, you know. I think the community-building exercise is just as important, even more important, as the capital improvements that are going to be made in some of these projects. It's a great opportunity to reengage existing users and, you know, bring in new users. It's just great potential for community ownership as we reimagine the space together. >> Great. Thank you so much for sharing those awesome reflections with us. Taking a look in the chat, I see that some ways some of our fellow libraries have created welcoming spaces is by discontinuing fines, which the Free Library of Philadelphia recently implemented. So we are with you on that. Also I see here someone gave a shout-out to our awesome culinary literacy center. A link in the chat to the webinar that was previously done on our culinary literacy center here at the Free Library of Philadelphia. So thank you, everyone, again for keeping engaged with us. And now to conclude our panelist discussion, I'd like to now chat with Kate Goodman. Kate, what ways are you working on promoting an inclusive and welcoming culture in the libraries where you work? And what challenges are you seeing in the communities where you work? >> Thanks, Falena. So I work in the north Philadelphia region of the free library branches. I work in eight different libraries across a variety of different communities. They differ from income, from extremely low income and high povertypoverty -- some people speak predominantly Spanish, people come from different cultures, status, all kinds of things. Since these communities have slightly different needs, I, first of all, try to be extremely cognizant of my own implicit bias and my own implicit experience. I'm white, I grew in a very affluent suburb of Los Angeles. So I personally have a different life experience than most of the communities I work with. The way I dress, body posture, I carry white privilege. I can't always overcome all barriers of the way I act or the way I'm perceived when I'm working with communities. But I try to be extremely aware of that. Also one thing I keep in mind is my own capacity as an outreach worker. Different communities have different needs. I found generally the lower income, higher poverty a community is, the more capacity I personally need to put into that. So rather than splitting my time equally in eight neighborhoods, I do targeted research to underresourced communities in my region. I think Falena and gaspar, everybody touched on this, but members of communities that are high poverty and otherwise oppressed tend to have a negative impression or even fear and intimidation of government institutions, including libraries, or families can be so busy with work or the trauma of other stressors of poverty and oppression, it's key that library staff, me and all of our staff, are working proactively to reach out to residents in places that residents already are. We can't wait for everybody to come to our front door. It takes more energy for us to go to them and build bridges to where people are at and where they do feel comfortable. This could be schools, community centers, just on the street at the bus stop, going door to door. So I do a lot of work canvassing specifically outside of neighborhood branches. I try to be proactive about explaining services, answering questions people have, bridging digital literacy gaps and making sure people know how to use technology. I speak Spanish, so I always, when I do speak the same language as a patron, try to speak in Spanish. A lot of our library assistants give tours of library spaces and explain how to use tools while people are in the branch. Some libraries include -- they have greeters at the door, so trying to be proactive in that way. There's examples, like during hurricane Maria when we had evacuees from Puerto Rico, we did welcoming activities for evacuees and put a clinic inside our branch to help people navigate FEMA. We even taught people how to use the bus and library assistants gave Spanish-language tours to patrons. When we plan programming, we try to find local facilitators who may be known and trusted by patrons who truly reflect and even live in the neighborhood. As much as we can, we try to integrate facilitators of color. I was going to say if someone could go back a slide before the next question, that would be helpful. >> Thank you for sharing. These are awesome-looking flyers, might I add. They look very inviting. I'm sure we all can agree they are much needed programming that we facilitate in our libraries. Kate, I'd like to ask, how do your communication strategies with patrons need to change during the pandemic and what lessons and strategies are you using now as we emerge from the pandemic and reopen our physical spaces to patrons? >> Yeah, so our outreach needed to change a lot during the pandemic. A lot of what had been possible wasn't possible anymore as our libraries' physical buildings closed. Because the physical buildings closed did not mean we were closed to being able to meet people's needs to the best of our abilities. One of the frameworks I tried to use was what did people need our building for in my neighborhoods in the past before the pandemic and how can we translate those services to both kind of new mediums of communication, new spaces, and eMER gent needs. We noticed things people needed before became almost emergency needs. Even things as simple as -- it's not necessarily simple, but the biggest things in the lowest income neighborhoods that we provide in my branches are after-school programming, safe physical space, craft supplies, also using the Internet. Some other librarians and I got together to think about how do we take those needs that we're used to being able to meet in a different way and translate them into providing them in a different mode. So one thing we did was host mutual aid fairs. Mutual aid is a way for community members to trade resources, usually from people who are better resourced to people who are less resourced. We had mutual aid fairs. People got -- we reached out to AFPCA. We reached out to people who are providing diapers and wipes. We reached out to the health department to see if they could get sexual health supplies. We reached out to food organizations that provided groceries. We did a Amazon wish list to collect craft supplies and other materials and giveaway bags in a way we didn't have to do before, we started hosting fairs in parks. Many volunteered to work at city-run food distribution centers. I think eight branches -- probably more -- I have been to eight of them. There have been more across the system. And then another thing -- yeah, so this access to Wi-Fi and computers in my neighborhoods -- a huge need that people had that increased during the pandemic was need to access the Internet and computers. That was -- a lot of people don't have computers at home. So we had staff, which was me, join an organization called Philly community wireless. It's basically examining a way to get mesh networks, like three alternative Internet that can be installed in people's houses. A few of my libraries, we were able to get a grant from a wealthier friends group to donate hot spots. We have mobile hot spots that were in parks and outside of branches which provided a COVID-safe way for people to use the Internet to apply for library cards and to get other essential library services. >> Awesome, awesome. Thank you so much, Kate, for sharing all of these awesome programs and opportunities of engagement with us. Jennifer, I'd like to now save -- if we have time for any questions that our attendees might have. >> Yes. We have had some great questions come through. Feel free to come keep them coming. There was a question about -- I think for Kate, you were talking about working with facilitators of color. Can you talk a little bit more about that? Someone asked for a little bit more details on that. >> Sure. One thing we proactively do is -- before planning anything -- I have been working with branch staff since I'm only one person planning limited things at a time. There's eight libraries. We work together to figure out how to do listening first before we plan programming. So I think a few examples -- at least one concrete example of that is in the Cecil B. Moore area, an intern and I did a lot of work going out and surveying residents in the neighborhood about what they felt like they needed and what resources were lacking in the neighborhood. We also mapped out -- we did I think it's like an asset-based community development kind of assessment on seeing what resources were available in the neighborhood. So one thing we realized was that there's no kind of yoga, wellness, healing, like, institutions in the neighborhood that were accessible. And so people mentioned yoga and meditation and things like that. We worked with -- there's at least one librarian in our cluster who's really connected to black healing and herbalism. We worked with a woman from apothecary and we did a series on basically black and Latinx ancestral healing, which got interrupted by the pandemic. It was basically a lot of our library staff and librarians are white, which is -- that's I think a systemic problem in every library system in the country, at least I think so. But that doesn't mean that we we can -- how do you say that? It doesn't mean that the only services and programs that we provide reflect our cultural heritage and knowledge instead of the patrons that we serve. >> That's great. >> I'm sorry, I'd like to interject and highlight what I think is a really important question for Kate. If she could talk more about people or patrons and how she works with patrons who have fear of government or government institutions. >> Sure. I think this is -- it's relevant in many neighborhoods, but especially undocumented communities or we find a lot of people coming from other countries who don't know what a public library is or don't believe things are free or are afraid because they have fines and they say, I haven't gone into the library in 10 years because I owe this money. Actually, I was one of those people before I started working for the library. I had all these fines. So, you know, it can just be intimidating, almost, for a variety of reasons. Like, people think of the library as part of the state infrastructure that can punish you. So, when possible, I try to start from the very beginning and explain things in the simplest terms and sometimes just by me being helpful or sending people to a branch where I know staff will be helpful or I'll say, ask for Mieca or Sarah and giving people's names and maybe directing somebody to a person who speaks their language, it's providing that extra personal bridge. So, like, never underestimate how intimidating it can be to go into a big building that is a government institution and people feel like they are going to be punished. There can be -- hand-holding is not the best terms, but shepherd people into using the branch is what I try to do. >> Yeah. Do other -- Gaspar or Mary, do you want to comment on that as well. >> I do believe also the appearance of the culture and what was the relationship in their country of origin depending where the person is coming from, there is relationship with libraries. Some libraries in South America, for instance, they have to pay a membership in order to access the information -- and the concept -- probably new groups might be explaining, you know, what a free library means here in the United States. >> I think for me -- I think mostly everything has been -- I think the part of building trust always comes up. Our libraries are in communities that face challenges. Because a lot of staff have rapport with community members, they feel comfortable asking people about where can I find a place to get something to eat for me and my family, also some of the programs -- if you look at some of the libraries, you'll see heavy presence of children for the after-school programs and sometimes parents will leave their kids -- because they have that trust, they will leave the kids and come back later. The library has built the trust and mainly through the staff -- like I said before, a lot of government services, people will do it through the library. I think one of the challenges is just getting the word out and changing people's opinions or whatever their past experiences are with the library because the library is more than just checking out books now, you know. So that's all I have on that. >> That's really helpful. Definitely libraries need a lot of different things -- different people comes from different parts of the world. So being mindful of that. I just wanted to quickly acknowledge -- I know that someone had mentioned sexual preference versus sexual orientation. I want to note that we did note that and I know might be something -- has in the curriculum. So thanks for pointing that out. And, Lynn, I wonder if you want to speak a little bit to -- somebody mentioned that we survey our patrons for feedback, ideas, but they would love to have more ideas for getting ideas from the community that are not yet coming to the branches. I know that you have materials and curriculum for that that will be coming. But do you want to speak a bit about that? >> Actually, I defer to our Community Initiatives Specialists because they are -- I'm in my administrative office more and support them and they are the ones doing the work. So I think that Kate and Mary and Gaspar are all on the front lines and I'd like to turn that question to them. I know that Gaspar has been working -- he mentioned refurbishment of libraries and he's been working with the community in frankfort. Maybe, Gaspar, you wanted to talk about that. I'm sure Mary and Kate have some things to contribute to that as well. >> Yeah. Like I mentioned before, you know, usually when I'm out and about in the community is usually when I get a lot of questions or even feedback on library services. Usually get questions from people who haven't used the library in a while or even feedback from those that do. But, also, like, because I have been able to participate in refurbishment of actually two branches I'm lucky enough to have two branches that are going to get refurbishment. It's opportunity -- surveys, engagement just to, you know, get people's opinion on the library, people's opinion on some of the community issues and even how they can -- how we at the library can support in resolving community issues because many people wouldn't think that a library would be involved in a lot of these community issues, but we do have, like Kate showed a bunch of the posters of things that are going on. We have partnerships with the community. We do have partnerships with agencies that are also actively fighting on the front line for a lot of these issues, be it food insecurity, be it youth mentoring. One of the big issues is also workforce development. So it's our opportunity to really get people's opinion and also get their opinion on the library, things they wouldn't really think of the library in a certain way. Those that have used who are satisfied or dissatisfied -- usually people come up, I like this program here, I wish we had more of this type of programs. Those community members that use the library online, they are the first to actually bring it to our attention, why does this library over there have this and ours doesn't, you know. That's usually an opening for us to try to take that feedback to our branches and look at how we can bring those programs there. One thing I do want to mention is that the pandemic, when it forced us to go online, one of the things that I noticed with some of the schools that we also have relationships, they were actually able to participate in some of the programs now that they were virtual that they wouldn't have been able to participate because -- when it was in person, because due to the distance. So that was one way of -- I wouldn't say equalising, but making things more accessible. But we're still going to work on trying to -- work with the community. These challenges are opportunities for us to work with the community in terms of what they want to bring in, because the community always has some of the best suggestions on who can implement that. Most of the time they already know who can implement this program and they have an idea of who they would like to bring in. >> I would just say that -- this is Lynn. I think surveys, whether they are digital or on paper are important. But I don't think they are really as important as face-to-face conversations and getting to know community members. It really helps that we're establishing those relationships and that we're not leaning too much on quantifying who the community is, but that we're getting to know -- we're sitting down and having coffee or tea, when we're able to post-pandemic, that we're establishing relationships rather than quantifying people and turning them into -- it's always a balance. Refurbishment that Gaspar was referring to is a program of the city of Philadelphia funded by the sugary beverage tax, some of the funds are coming back to park, recreation centers, and libraries to fix our broken air conditioners and leaky roofs. Not only that, but as more, furniture equipment to modernize our interiors. So I'm just mindful of the time and I want to -- need to actually move on to the second-to-the-last slide. Once again, thank you to the participant that mentioned the language issue about sexual preference and sexual orientation. We'll work on getting that corrected. So thank you for joining us today. Before we go, I want to remind you that the skills for community-centered libraries will be -- the curriculum will be released next month in August. If you would like to be put on our mailing list about the curriculum release, please fill out the Google form in the chat or on the landing page for the webinar and on the WebJunction website. We hope this webinar has encouraged you to learn more about the curriculum. >> Fantastic. Thank you so much to all of you. It's so exciting to see -- and I have to say today was kind of the first time in a webinar where I'm starting to think about the things that we'll be able to do once we all get back to work fully. The food -- I can't tell you how excited I am for libraries to be able to host food events again. So it's a changing time, but it's -- today has really warmed my heart to hear your wonderful examples. Thank you so much to everyone who contributed your great ideas in chat and your questions. We encourage you to be sure and join us for the final session in the series, exploring the SOAR, strengths, opportunities, aspirations, and results -- model. So we'll be sure and talk even more about community engagement at that session. I'll send you all an e-mail today once the recording is posted and I'll send you a certificate next week for attending today. I also am going to send you to a short survey as you leave. We'd love your feedback. We'll share that feedback with our -- the folks at Free Library of Philadelphia as well. Will help us guide our final session. Thank you again, especially to all of you who presented today for bringing this important work to our WebJunction webinar. Thank you all for being here today. Everyone, have a fantastic weekend coming up. We'll see you next month.