Kettle and Stony Point First Nation to revitalize local library through partnership with Indigo
By Rick Garrick
CHIPPEWAS OF KETTLE AND STONY POINT — Chippewas of Kettle and Stony Point First Nation – Education Services is looking forward to adding more books to the Kettle and Stony Point Hillside School library through a $50,000 partnership with Indigo. Kettle and Stony Point is one of six First Nation education departments and schools that will receive more than $300,000 in funding through Indigo Love of Reading Foundation grants.
“Our students have worked very hard this year with a lot of our literacy initiatives and I think it will be a wonderful opportunity for them to be able to continue along with that next year as well as have some other exciting opportunities that are going to be possible because of the grant,” says Leslie Skolly, library technician/music instructor at Hillside School, noting that they started a library revitalization last year. “Some of our collection was quite dated and we wanted to make sure that all of the titles … within the library and our collection were current.”
Skolly says they met with a consultant to make sure they were following the correct parameters for the library revitalization.
“So over the course of the year last year we added to that collection but there’s still a lot that needs to be added to to make sure that we have a very diverse complement of Indigenous literature for our students so they see themselves reflected in our library because they are the centre of our school,” Skolly says. “We want to make sure they see themselves both in the library and in the classroom, so part of the grant is going to go towards making sure that we continue to add to that complement of literature that we have, both in storytelling and fiction, non-fiction, reference books, history, all of that that is culturally relevant and has been vetted and making sure it is reflective of the community as a whole. We also are going to be having some literature circles within our programming — we did some professional development this year that gave us some really big insights about some literature circles or as some might call them, a book club, that we can have within the school both within our younger and older divisions.”
Skolly says they will also use the funding to update some of the collection within the school’s book room.
“We also want to have some multi-media that can be used both within the classroom and in the library to be able to help with students who either are struggling in different facets of their reading or as a complement to an extra project they can do within the classroom,” Skolly says.
Bob Bressette, principal at Hillside School, says he can’t wait to see what the partnership with Indigo will bring to the school.
“We know the power of books, we know where that can take them and where it can help them visualize and just have different experiences and maybe even share in some of those experiences,” Bressette says. “So it’s really exciting to be a part of this unique opportunity.”
Indigo committed to the Fifteen Percent Pledge in 2020, devoting more space for BIPOC (Black, Indigenous and People of Colour) authors on its bookshelves, including a focus on Indigenous authors, and has since increased Indigenous author displays in stores and expanded Indigenous offerings in school libraries by leveraging Indigo Love of Reading Foundation grant money.
“Since 2020, both Indigo and the broader Canadian market have sold more unique titles and more units of books written by Indigenous authors,” says Rachel Law, print experience manager at Indigo. “It’s fantastic to see more Canadians gravitating towards books written by Indigenous authors. Reading stories by Indigenous voices is an important step towards reconciliation while educating ourselves about the true history of our country.”