Afternoon host Mareva Lindo talks with Cheryl Space, Library Director of the Community Libraries of Providence, and Lee Smith, Adult Services Librarian at the Mount Pleasant branch, about what’s happening at the Community Libraries of Providence in November.
Climate Ready Community Cohorts
Cheryl Space: These are led by the Providence Resilience Partnership, and these are going to be monthly, two-hour meetings we’re hosting in six of our libraries. They all happen from 5:30 to 7:30 in the evening. So five of them are going to be in person, and two are going to be online in the winter, when folks don’t really want to come out in the evening. And the goal is for community members to get to know each other and to explore the climate risks facing our city – so flooding, extreme temperatures, smoke, severe storms – and to learn how to protect their homes, their families and their businesses, and to do this through forming a more tight-knit network of community members.
Space: Middle Makerz is a free, community-oriented visual arts after-school program for middle school students in grades six to eight, and it’s taught by student teaching artists and faculty from the Rhode Island School of Design. It’ll be taking place at the Mount Pleasant Library on Wednesday afternoons from four o’clock until six o’clock, and in this series of offerings, the people who participate will be making zines and comics and puppets and printmaking.
Simple Words, Simple Acts: Accompanying the Dying
Space: This event is going to be happening at the Rochambeau Library on Nov. 19, from 6-7:30 p.m. It will be led by Judith and Ava, who are both end-of-life doulas who are trained to provide advice and information, emotional support, and physical comfort at the end of someone’s life. So they’re there when a person is preparing to die, through death itself, and even afterward, and they can help the family and friends and the folks who care for the person who’s dying to create a peaceful environment, and help facilitate and mediate any last wishes or cultural or spiritual rituals. So this is a really important conversation, and I’m really pleased that we’re going to be able to offer it and help people talk about one of the most difficult and challenging things to talk about.
Space: This is also happening at the Rochambeau Library on Nov. 20, from 5-7:30 p.m. We actually have 20 local authors who will be here in the library, offering their books for sale. They’ll be signing them, and you can just meet and greet and talk to them. And as always, at community libraries, there will be refreshments.
Afternoon Book Club at Mount Pleasant Library
Lee Smith: We read an eclectic mix of books – nonfiction, fiction, all sorts of genres. In November, we’re reading “The Mushroom at the End of the World” by Anna Tsing. It’s a nonfiction book about the matsutake mushroom. It’s a blend of nature writing, anthropology and economics that uses the mushroom as a symbol to explore how life continues even after destruction.
The afternoon book club meets at the Mount Pleasant Library on the first Wednesday of every month at 1:30 p.m. No sign-up necessary. They’ll be talking about “The Mushroom at the End of the World” on Wednesday, Dec. 5.
You can find more information about events at the Community Libraries of Providence at clpvd.org.
