See detailed information here.

Attendees painted gardening pots, toured the park’s garden while learning about permaculture, and ended the night by planting seeds provided by our seed library in their personalized pots. 

The Park describes permaculture as “a holistic design philosophy that mimics relationships found in nature and has been used for thousands of years to create living, sustainable, regenerative systems.” The park coordinators taught us all about plants that grow better together or apart, how to prevent deer and other animals from eating plants, what materials are best for compost, how to best make use of a small space, and more! 

The South Side Permaculture Park “strives to restore soil, create healthy root systems, and ultimately grow more nutritious food in urban areas for the people who need it most.” One of their upcoming projects is to build a tool shed out of the most natural, sustainable materials. 

You can learn more about the park, including how to harvest your own produce from their garden, here.

The Bethlehem Area Public Library South Side Branch’s adult summer reading program began on June 11th and ends on August 13th. Adults that attend any virtual or in-person programs held by the South Side Branch during this time will be entered into a raffle to win a gift card from South Side businesses.

We also have plenty of take-home activities that you can pick up at the South Side Branch or download on our website. Submitting these completed activities will enter you in the raffle as well. Check out our upcoming programs here!

We’ve known it for a long time, but BAPL’s Janine Santoro is now officially a “Star.” She received the Community Star Award on September 16th from the Lehigh Valley IronPigs in recognition of her outstanding contributions to the local community. 

The award was created by the Iron Pigs to recognize “any person who demonstrates leadership, compassion, dedication and a commitment to make their community a better place.” As part of the award, Janine was given tickets to the game as well as the opportunity to throw out the first pitch in a ceremony prior on the field to the first inning.

Janine was recognized for the many projects she has facilitated at BAPL such as Vocational ESL of the Lehigh Valley, the Tool and Seed Library (which launched in May of 2021 with the help of South Side Vision, Community Action Development Corporation of Bethlehem, and South Side Garden Alliance), and Voces de la Comunidad: The Latinx Experience in Bethlehem, PA (an oral history project that is aiming to launch this fall co-created by Dr. Mary Foltz of Lehigh University, Javier Toro, and Ronald Johnson Contreras). 

Janine has also worked with scholars from all over the United States, including Lehigh University, in order to encourage meaningful discourse and change in support of anti-racism and closing the gap between the academic community and the general public. This includes increasing programming for communities that are often “othered” with the goal of having more diverse, inclusive, and equitable programming, particularly in conjunction with experts from the LGBTQIA, indigenous, immigrant, and POC communities.

Janine also conducts outreach to patrons who are unable to leave their homes for health reasons so that they can access library resources.

When asked what receiving this award means to her, Janine said, “On a communal level, it means that hopefully a lot of people are being connected with the resources that they need and that they are learning something new. It means that when people hear my name, they see me as a representative of the library and think to themselves ‘the library can help me with this’ or ‘Janine will know who to talk to or where I can go.’ Vocationally I have never been able to fit into a box, and so this award for me is affirming that I don’t need to; I could never reach so many people if I did. It also means that taking calculated risks and being outspoken is worth it if it is of benefit to others.”

Janine has had plenty of experiences working with the local community in the past. “Besides the library, I have in the past worked as a chaplain at St. Luke’s University Health Network, and I am currently a minister and elder within Presbyterian Church (USA), helping churches without pastors and supporting social justice initiatives in the religious sphere. I am also currently serving as President of Latino Leadership Alliance of the Lehigh Valley, which seeks to connect the Latinx community with resources for physical and mental health, vocational opportunities, and cross-promoting different community and business initiatives,” she said.

Janine would like to thank the following people in accepting this award: “Josh Berk and Brenda Grow, who have both allowed me the space to try new things without fear of failure and who have supported ‘out of the box’ programs and my participation with community groups to help better the library and what we offer. I also have incredible co-workers at the South Side: Clare Ebner, Stephanie Steinly, and Kay Hutnik. There are also so many people at the Main Library that are wonderful and who help me with all these projects, especially Matt Wolf, Matthew Rothfuss, Regina Kochmaruk, Caitlyn Cuba, and Mary Catherine Bluder. There are also people who I admire very much and have inspired me in this work that are no longer with the library, but I feel present with me as I work everyday: Rayah Levy, Libby Ortiz, Kate Racculia, Elizabeth Saraceno, and Valerie Mann. Lastly, there are also so many community partners and folks that help me to do this programming and outreach, but I especially would want to thank the Honorable Judge Nancy Matos Gonzalez, Tony Ortiz, Guillermo Lopez, Teresa Donate, Councilwoman Olga Negron, Mary Foltz, Javier Toro, Ronald Johnson Contreras, and Yadira Colon-Lopez. I do not do this work by myself, so any credit I get automatically goes to these folks, too. I am filled with gratitude for all of them.”

Congratulations to you, Janine, and thank you for the incredibly selfless and important work that you do for our community, and BAPL.

Photos are courtesy of Janine Santoro

Dr. Melinda González, a fellow colleague from Rutgers University, an anthropologist, and winner of the 2021 Mary Fran Myers Gender and Disaster Award, graciously accepted the task to speak to our community about methods of organizing around using community and art spaces (like the library) to foster change.  “We are seeking to learn from the experiences of those that survived Hurricane Maria and attempting to address specific issues in this session that affect our Puerto Rican and broader Latinx community,” Janine stated. “While this will take place during Hispanic Heritage Month, we want to highlight that Latinx stories and lived experiences are important all year long– our efforts to educate and create tangible change will outlast these autumn months. We want to make clear that Dr. González’s work is not to be tokenized, but celebrated and implemented in the years to come in a city with a resilient and creative Puerto Rican and Latinx population.”

REGISTER FOR THE EVENT HERE

We give thanks to our generous sponsors who have made this event possible: Moravian University’s Office of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, Latino Leadership Alliance of the Lehigh Valley, Northampton Community College, and Carol and Carlos Lopez.

More about Dr. Melinda González:

Dr. Melinda González, a native of Newark, New Jersey with ancestral home in Moca, Puerto Rico, is an Afro-Indigenous scholar-activist-poet of Puerto Rican descent. She is a socio-cultural anthropologist, focused on environmental anthropology, whose work maps how disaster is differentially distributed across race, class, and gender, and she brings decolonial and indigenous research methods to the study of new media technologies in environmental justice studies. Her dissertation research “Rhyming Through Disaster” examines the lived experiences of Hurricane Maria survivors in Puerto Rico and New York and their long-term disaster recovery efforts through the use of digital space, poetry, and community organizing. Her next project, tentatively titled, “Urban Water Wars,” will address racial disparities in the ongoing water crisis in urban centers of the United States, with particular focus on Newark, New Jersey.

Melinda received her bachelor’s degree in Anthropology from Barnard College, Columbia University in May 2007, where she pursued undergraduate research on the role of women in the New York Chapter of the Puerto Rican revolutionary civil rights organization, The Young Lords Party. In October 2012, Melinda graduated with a master’s degree in Anthropology from Rutgers University – The State University of New Jersey where she pursued research on poetry and hip hop as tools of resistance against femicide and colonial repression in Oaxaca City, Mexico and in San Juan, Puerto Rico. While a student at LSU beginning in August 2016, Melinda served as research assistant to Dr. Micha Rahder on a collaborative multi-sited ethnographic research project, entitled “Maya Forest Futures: Violence, Uncertainty, and Transnational Biodiversity Conservation in Mexico, Belize, and Guatemala.”  Melinda has engaged in collaborative ethnographic writing and research on feminist anthropological approaches to creating research methods for anthropologists with disabilities and single parents in the academy.

Melinda received her Ph.D. in Anthropology from Louisiana State University in May 2021. Beginning Fall 2021, she is a Postdoctoral Fellow at The Institute for the Study of Global Racial Justice at Rutgers University.

She is a performance / spoken word poet that has performed internationally, and a practitioner of the Brasilian martial art capoeira.

Melinda believes that decolonizing the academy starts with providing graduate students and contingent faculty with livable wages and access to free medical and mental health care.

 Have you participated in the South Side Branch’s adult summer reading program yet?

65-piece tool set-Kobalt — includes : 22 bits, 3 extension bars, 1 spinner handle, 1 ratchet, 1 bit adapter, 36 sockets, and case

119-piece tool set — includes : 1 ratchet handle, 2 extension bars, 1 drive adapter, 30 sockets, 6 wrenches, 1 spark plug socket, 4 screwdrivers, 2 pliers, 1 adjustable wrench, 24 hex keys, 40 screwdriver bits, 2 bit adapters, 1 ratchet bit holder, 1 claw hammer, 1 torpedo level, 1 tape measure, and 1 blow mold case

Cultivator and transplanter

Garden Rake

Pruner Fiskars-orange softgrip pruner

Spade Shovel

We also have lots of great new books on gardening, DIY projects, and related topics. Check one out today!

1. Complete container herb gardening: design and grow beautiful, bountiful herb-filled pots
   
2. Field guide to urban gardening: how to grow plants no matter where you live 
3. The Healing Garden: Herbs for Health and Wellness
4. Shop Class for Everyone: Practical Life Skills in 83 Projects
5. The Complete Guide to No-Dig Gardening: Grow beautiful vegetables, herbs, and flowers – the easy way!
6. Pruning Simplified: A Step-by-Step Guide to 50 Popular Trees and Shrubs 
7. The Complete Guide to Pruning Trees and Bushes Everything You Need to Know Explained Simply 
8. Container Gardening For Beginners: A Guide to Growing Your Own Vegetables, Fruits, Herbs, and Edible Flowers
9. Grow Bag Gardening: The Revolutionary Way to Grow Bountiful Vegetables, Herbs, Fruits, and Flowers in Lightweight, Eco-friendly Fabric Pots
10. All New Square Foot Gardening
11. Growing vegetables : all the know-how and encouragement you need to grow and fall in love with! your brand-new food garden
12. Modern Homestead Garden: growing self-sufficiency in any size backyard
13. Hydroponics  David Brett’s Organic Farming
14. DIY for Renters: don’t call the landlord : a renter’s guide to repairs and personalizations that won’t break your lease
15. Compost: a family guide to making soil from scraps

Tool Library Desktop Catalog

The event will be kicked off with a ribbon cutting and is being held in partnership with the Community Action Development Corporation of Bethlehem and is sponsored by Southside Pride.

The tool and seed library will allow patrons to borrow hand tools such as shovels, cultivators, socket wrenches, and other gardening tools that will aid in the community’s effort to continue to make Bethlehem even more beautiful than it already is.

The library will also be featuring books that will help you get started on your gardening journey after picking up the tools that will assist you in achieving those green-thumb goals.

“The tool and seed library will be a revolutionary way for our community to participate in greening Bethlehem and to promote sustainability in personal and communal ways,” said Janine Carambot Santoro, Adult Services Technician at the South Side Branch of the library.

The South Side Branch of the Bethlehem Area Public Library is located at 400 Webster Street, Bethlehem, PA 18015. Patrons are encouraged to stop by the library to grab all the tools they need to start the summer off right by connecting with nature!

The original articles about South Side’s grant for the Latinx community appears below the story.

Newer residents of Bethlehem, PA might not know that the South Side Branch of Bethlehem Area Public Library was one of the first places that intentionally sought to transform itself into a place that would “court Spanish speakers.”  In the mid 1970s, the South Side Branch of Bethlehem Area Public Library received a federal grant for $67,035 to “make the facilities more conducive to increased membership and use among Spanish-speaking residents, and to create an awareness among Spanish-speaking residents of the services libraries offer.” At the time, this would cater to the needs of 10,000 Spanish speaking residents, predominantly those who migrated from Puerto Rico. These residents would now be able to find items in both English and Spanish, which included 2,000 Spanish books, a collection of magazines and films, “five viewers, seven cassette players, and two record players.” In addition to circulating items and materials to be used in-house, renovations included creating a children’s room and expanding the basement, which has since become a space for classes, community discussions, book sales, and storage. The grant also helped with the “hiring of a children’s librarian and two bilingual library aides, all for one year- the duration of the grant.”

Today the South Side Branch continues to be a place where Spanish-speaking patrons can checkout movies, music, books, and ESL materials. DIY programs, gardening workshops, legal workshops, and ESL classes are typically offered bilingually, and one-on-one “Book-a-Librarian” appointments can be requested in Spanish. In 2020, we have many community partners on the South Side that have helped to provide and expand services to our Latinx neighbors of all ages and abilities, which have enhanced our community into becoming a robust, vibrant, diverse, and creative city.

Read the articles below, in English or Spanish, to learn more about BAPL’s dedicated staff, including Doris Snyder, who knew the importance of people being able “to keep some contact with their native tongue” and “not neglect it.”

A note to the reader:

We forge forward, with urgency, to unearth and celebrate the stories of our Latinx community members- and you can help! If you know any Latino/Hispanic community leaders that would like to share their stories with us for our oral history project, Voces de la Comunidad, please contact Janine Santoro at: JCarambot@bapl.org. This project is generously supported through a Mellon Grant from Lehigh Valley Engaged Humanities Consortium and is in partnership with Lehigh University. Due to COVID-19, our interviews with community leaders are currently being conducted remotely through Zoom. The project seeks to explore the diversity of the community, the changing nature of work, and the evolving landscape for Latinx members in Bethlehem, which will shine a light on the community’s stories and their contributions over the past 50 years.

…

Janine Santoro works within Adult Services at the South Side Branch of Bethlehem Area Public Library, in Bethlehem, PA, creating curriculum and workshops that serve those in the community free of cost. Janine received her B.A. in English and Psychology from Rutgers University (NJ) and her M.Div. from Drew Theological School (NJ).

Sources:

Amigo, A. (1976, November 6). Noticias de Aca y de Alla: Biblioteca Atrae a los Hispanos. The Morning Call, p. 26.

Weil, L. (1976, October 13). Library courts Spanish speakers: Open house on Friday. The Morning Call, p. 11.

Researched by Elizabeth Saraceno.

Attention Parents/Guardians: Please bring children to pick up meals. If child is not present, proof of child residing in Bethlehem is required. Examples include school ID, report card, School Café printout/screenshot, parent portal printout/screenshot. See here for full details.

All proceeds from ticket sales and sponsorships will go toward installing an elevator at the historic South Side Branch, making the Branch’s fantastic slate of programs for children and adults accessible for all. Currently, programs are held in the basement of the almost 90 year-old building, which is inaccessible for strollers, wheelchairs, walkers, and anyone with limited mobility. In order for the South Side Branch to be a truly inclusive place for all, an elevator is a necessary update.

The event has already been generously sponsored by the Friends of the Library, as well as Merchants Bank and the Fraternal Order of Police Star Lodge #20, representing the men and women of the Bethlehem Police Department. The West Philadelphia Foot Tappers will liven up the party with jazz and ‘30s swing.

“Halloween is a time where people can dress up, party, and laugh at what they are afraid of,” says South Side Branch Adult Services Technician Janine Santoro. “SILVER SCREAM will be an event where community members can do all of these things, while knowing they are contributing to a great cause that they will all be able to benefit from.”

And “librarians,” says Executive Director Josh Berk, “know how to party.”

For more information about attending the event or to become a sponsor, email jberk@bapl.org or kracculia@bapl.org.

-What: Silver Scream at the South Side, A Halloween benefit for the South Side Branch of BAPL

-Where: Bethlehem Area Public Library, South Side Branch 400 Webster Street, Bethlehem, PA 18015, 610-867-7852

-When: Saturday October 26, 2019 | 7:00 pm – 10:00 pm

-Admission: $40 per person. All proceeds directly benefit the elevator renovation at the Branch. 

Credit card reservations may be made online at www.bapl.org (direct ticket link: Silver Scream at the South Side), or by calling either the Main library at 610-867-3761 or the Branch at 610-867-7852. If you would like to pay by check, make payable to Bethlehem Area Public Library and send directly to the Main library at 11 W. Church Street, Bethlehem PA 18018, with a memo that you are purchasing tickets for SILVER SCREAM.

Get your ticket today!

Main Branch Week Four prize recipient, Ruth G., won a $25 gift card to Bethlehem Dairy Store (AKA The Cup).

South Side Branch Week Four prize recipient, Bonnie S., won a $20.00 gift card to Domaci Home Store. 

Our Adult Summer Reading Program continues this week with a $25 gift card to the Backdoor Bakeshop at Main Branch and a $15.00 Gift Card for Carlos’ Bakery at the South Side Branch. To enter at the Main Branch, simply write a book or audiobook review and submit it to the reference desk at the Main Branch. To enter at South Side Branch write a book review and submit it to the front desk, complete one of our universe-themed activities, or come to any of our programs for adults at the South Side Branch.

Hope to see you soon!

We are scary-excited for our Halloween benefit “Silver Scream at the South Side” on Saturday, October 26, 2019, from 7-10pm. It is our hope that through our generous sponsors and through those that attend, we can raise funds for our elevator endeavor! Check out all of the great ways you can contribute to a great cause and have a spooky good time!

For more information, contact Josh Berk at JBerk@bapl.org.

Attendees learned not only the traditional Bomba dances and etiquette, but the history of the instruments, the ingenious communication methods of Taino and African slaves using music, and the folklore behind the lyrics. In this celebration, we were reminded that Puerto Rico is indeed part of the United States, and its Black history should be revisited and honored often.

Check out the pictures and videos below!

Judy and Shai Robkin, owners of Vernon Library Supplies

Judy and Shai Robkin, owners of Vernon Library Supplies, had the altruistic goal of donating one hundred percent of Vernon’s 2017 operating profits to libraries and other non-profits helping Americans gain English literacy and proficiency. The Robkins are very proud of and appreciative of their own employees, many of whom are new immigrants.  Judy’s father, Henry, was a 13 year old child who escaped from Nazi Germany and came to the U.S. knowing no English. He returned to Germany to fight against the regime as an American soldier. The G.I. Bill allowed Henry to pursue his American education. The influence of both familial history and current affairs inspired the Robkins to become avid supporters for many programs that promote the successful integration of immigrants, including Vocational ESL of the Lehigh Valley.

Janine Santoro, BAPL South Side Branch

Janine Santoro, an Adult Services Technician at the South Side Branch, will be teaching the class alongside Anne Cragen, a certified ESL teacher. The class will also be drawing upon knowledge and resources from South Side Bethlehem’s local CareerLink office, Community Action Board, business representatives, and recruitment specialists. This new program and these exciting community connections allow BAPL to continue to be a dedicated community partner committed to life-long learning, which is at the heart of our mission. Immigrants and refugees make up both an influential and invaluable part of not only Bethlehem’s cultural tapestry, but also our country’s. In offering this program to refugees and immigrants, regardless of status, we are strengthening our resolve to being a non-profit that educates, informs and inspires by providing free and open access to materials of information to all people.