What is One Library At A Time?
We collaborate with the teachers and community leaders to determine which books the children need most. We then purchase those books (locally if possible) and begin to turn books and shelves into a library.
We work with other non-profits to identify locations for libraries. Then the real work begins.
We label and catalog all of the books using the Dewey Decimal System. We then train a local resident, and sometimes older children, to be librarians and continue the work of labeling, cataloging and checking the books out to the children.
One of the important things we strive to do is to get the local community involved to continue to “feed” the library with books after we are gone.
A Note From Our Founder
"My name is Susan Dancy Aldrich and I am the founder of One Library at a Time. We create libraries with the help of people like you. The theologian Frederick Buechner said “Vocation is where your greatest joy meets the world’s greatest need”. That is what I try to live up to each day. I am a former teacher and work with people in high poverty areas. I love children and I love books so it seemed obvious to me what I needed to be doing. We bring books and create lending libraries to assist poverty stricken children. We are the ones who lights the flame. The people who we train to run the libraries are the ones who keep the light of knowledge glowing and send it into the world. We are the planters of seeds. They are the ones that plant and replant, growing the library one book at a time.
Without this effort these children have no access to books or even textbooks they need in order to actively participate in school. We put books, computers, maps and other resource material into the hands of those who most need them. It is amazing to see how carefully they are treated and how well they are used."
Susan Aldrich
