By My Side neighborhood parenting group

Good Grief!

Can't believe I haven't written in this since June!!

It was a busy summer getting settled into our new digs at Summerfield and such. Playgroups have been awesome! We have been welcoming an average of 2 new families per week. The day groups have about 8 - 10 familes.

Our Halloween party hosted 22 families! Good thing we have the larger space!!

This week has been especially stressful with the word of our Fishtown Branch of the Free Libary being targeted for closing.

We're all trying to find a way to keep this from happening. Allison, our librarian and The Friends of the Fishtown Library have been working hard at trying to secure more programming such as The Preschool Storytime Fun we are currently partners with them on forTuesday mornings and now this.

While I totally am sensitive to the global economic troubles we all are experiencing, it doesn't make sense to me to close a place where people can go for free. We need more of these kinds of resources to make up for the tight budgets families have. When you can't afford to go to the movies or to the Museums, etc. the library is an awesome resource.

Some of our parents expressed how disappointed they would be if they couldn't go there to take out books, DVD's and such that they can't afford to buy!

It is heartwarming to see the community coming together to look for solutions! I hope we can avoid this loss!!

The Parenting Program continues to grow and our hope is that we will be more financially stable in the coming year is spite of the economic turmoil. Grassroots support is what has kept us going and more of that is what we seek! We have served over 100 families this past year on a shoestring budget!!

We're working on an event for March '09 that would reunite some former Parenting Program folks and introduce them to some new ones.

The history of The Parenting Program is an incredible one and a story we want to tell! More about this later.

SAVE THE LIBRARY!!