The following article was printed in today’s Uptown Gazette and was submitted by staff writer, Leslie A. M. Smith. She was able to connect with Virginia last week to discuss the book drive and what they are doing to fill the library in Afghanistan.
Tucking their children into bed is an impossibility for U.S. soldiers stationed overseas, but reading a goodnight story to their children might just happen — if only these dads had some children’s books where they are stationed in Afghanistan.
Librarian Virginia Sanchez is on a mission to change that. Sanchez is a Long Beach native and a Navy Reservist. She has been in Afghanistan since February and is sharing her passion for literacy by expanding the library at her base, Camp Blackhorse. With a little help from her hometown, she can expand the children’s section.
She’s getting that help from the teachers and students at Los Cerritos Elementary School. They are collecting children’s books on Dec. 12 to be sent to Sanchez in Afghanistan. All donations of new or used books are welcome.
“Right now, the service members are using camcorders and mailing the recordings home, or using Skype, Yahoo and other instant messaging services to read to their children,” Sanchez said via e-mail.
Soldiers don’t have much time to communicate to loved ones, according to Sanchez. And when they can, it’s expensive.
“A private Internet connection at Camp Blackhorse starts at $65 per month for maybe 10 hours per month and many of the younger service members cannot afford that,” she said. “I paid $110 per month to be able to log-in for as long as I could stay awake and have enough bandwidth to e-mail photos and my little stories to family and friends.”
Stories long have been part of Sanchez’s life. She began working in the Long Beach main library when she was just 19. She pursued a career in library sciences and holds a Master of Arts in Information Resources and Library Science from the University of Arizona.
“I attended UA on the Knowledge River Scholarship, an Institute of Museum and Library Services funded scholarship to increase the number of Latinos and Native Americans in librarianship. As of 2002, the number of professional librarians from these ethnicities was less than 3%,” she said.
Sanchez has worked in library services in many areas of California, including posts in state government departments in Sacramento and in Avalon, Santa Catalina. She went back to her alma mater as program manager for the Library School before returning to Southern California, where she last was the Adult Librarian at Dana Library in Bixby Knolls.
Sanchez said she enlisted in the Navy Reserves in 1999 and re-enlisted for another six years in 2007, but this is her first overseas deployment.
“My mother instilled a strong sense of community in her children,” Sanchez said. “It was a natural progression for me to go from helping out at pet vaccination clinics and food drives, to being a Guardian Angel walking street patrols, to serving my country.”
One of the first things she did at Camp Blackhorse was to reorganize the library and to increase the number of books accessible to the troops.
“In addition to posting to Operation Paperback and Books for Troops, the Navy and Marine Corps Moms of Quad Cities, Ill., were very instrumental in getting materials to me,” she said.
“We are building the children’s collection based on the USO’s United Through Reading (UTR) program. The actual USO-sponsored program underway at Blackhorse is just kicking off. We hope, now that we have consent of the command at Blackhorse, to qualify for the free camcorder, mini CDs and DVDs that are provided by the USO.”
According to Sanchez, the UTR program sends out 25 books, but through private donations there are far more than that already at Blackhorse.
“My poor fellow service members at Blackhorse have had to put up with me bouncing all over camp, reading out loud in delight at some book or other I unboxed,” she said. “Picture that in a combat zone!”
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