intervee

Alright, my name is Ruth Quintara and I am the Executive Director of the San Juan Ridge Community Library. I am the Executive Director of the San Juan Ridge Community Library, and I am the Executive Director of the San Juan Ridge Community Library. I am the Executive Director of the San Juan Ridge Community Library. I am the Executive Director of the San Juan Ridge Community Library. I am the Executive Director of the San Juan Ridge Community Library. I am the Executive Director of the San Juan Ridge Community Library. I am the Executive Director of the San Juan Ridge Community Library. I am the Executive Director of the San Juan Ridge Community Library. I am the Executive Director of the San Juan Ridge Community Library. I am the Executive Director of the San Juan Ridge Community Library. I am the Executive Director of the San Juan Ridge Community Library. Since we've gotten the funding of $60,000, we have grown substantially and expanded our programs and our community has been very receptive and we have great statistics to support all of that. So we have been, recently we're kind of in this quagmire of whether or not we wanted to cut services or days open because our funding isn't adequate to support our expanding needs. So we went in front of the Board of Supervisors at the beginning of May to request additional funding until our contract is renegotiated by the county in July of 2025. What's the $60,000? Is that a yearly deal? Yeah, it's annual operating costs and it covers my salary, another woman's salary, all of our programming, book supplies, ink, internet, not internet, the county provides for that. And we have a lot of support from the Friends of the Library. They've been wonderful and they actually built us that building over there so that we could continue having programs and it's been great, great relationship with them. So we went in front of the Board of Supervisors to request additional funding to help us with our expansion without having to cut our services. And then we were hoping that when we renegotiate our contract in a year from this July that we'll be able to support the current level of services that we have with that funding. We also get funding from, like I said, Friends of the Library, but we also have some foundations. We haven't had to fundraise since our first five years when we all worked for free and fundraised every single month for four years and it was insane. And so we haven't done much fundraising since then. We haven't had to luckily, but currently we are in some financial straits and we're trying to just find a way to make it until July of 2025 and then hopefully our contract will be able to sustain us. So you're looking for a budget increase. Yes. Could you give us more details on what you're looking for? Well, we want to be able to provide a livable wage for myself and for my coworkers and we would like to be able to continue our robust program schedule that we have. So that looking, and then we'd also like to support the Oak Tree Community Park who has been, they have been a generous landlord for us over the years and a very valuable partner. They don't charge us, what is it, a prevailing wage of rent. I don't know how to say that. Fix that in the editing please. But we don't pay, we would like to pay them a fair wage for their rental because we rent from the park. So currently we don't pay very much. But they're very supportive of us and so with more funding we'd be able to pay them what they need to operate as well. And as an organization, a non-profit on the ridge, it's challenging to make it in tough times. So we'd like to just have everybody be taken care of, have a livable wage, keep our programming free, keep everything free and continue to expand and grow. What's the time that you and the other co-workers here at the library put in on like a week later? We're open five days a week, three eight-hour days and two four-hour days. So about 32 hours a week. And then I do all the administration and a lot of the publicizing and the promoting of the events. And then I'm also looking for funding all the time as well. So there's lots of stuff that I do kind of behind the scenes that I don't do on the day But I am here almost every day that we're open. And a lot of that work is volunteer work, right? No. I get paid. I get paid out of that $60,000. Yeah, I have a salary. It's just not very much. And you're a co-worker? I'm a co-worker as well. And everybody's paid. All of my programmers, all of the people that teach the classes, that do the programming, they all get paid. We're providing employment. Even if it's small, it's a little bit here and there. We've got a couple of retired teachers that work for us. We've got stuff for seniors. We've got a free Qigong class. We've got Spanish. We've got ukulele. We've got guitar. We've got tons of great arts and crafts almost every day. We have a summer program that we're working on for survival skills. So it's been going great. So we stretch that money. Believe me, we stretch it. But because of the economy and because of everything going up and because of our expansion with our programs and just trying to maintain it, it's just not enough. We need almost twice that. So that's what we're hoping for. So can you tell us a bit about the community you serve? I know high schoolers come here after school. We have pretty much every demographic comes through here. We have lots of families that come in and utilize our free programming and our classes and all of our collection. We have a great play area. We have tons of seniors that come in and don't know how to use their devices or have been trying to navigate paperwork of some kind, whether it's Social Security, whether it's applying for a passport, whether it's doing your taxes. I don't know. I've done just about everything, driver's licenses, all kinds of stuff. And then, yeah, we have some kids that come in after school and do some of our programs as well. We've got Grizzly Hill up the road. We get a lot of them coming in for our guitar class lately. Yeah, lots of people. We have a pretty broad population out here. Mostly everything that everybody has in common is that they're rural, they're economically disadvantaged typically, or they're just isolated. And so we provide a hub for a lot of people out here. They come to socialize. They come to do our puzzle. They come to come to our puppet shows that we put up for the little acorns up the hill. So, yeah, we get everybody. Everybody comes here. All ages, free, central, welcoming space. All right. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. 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