COLUMBIA, S.C. — Throughout Hispanic Heritage Month, Richland Library Northeast will offer many events and resources for the community to take advantage of, but they say the importance of these resources goes beyond this month.
“It’s part of your heritage, and it's very important for children to have representation. To come to a public library and say, oh, she's because Spanish, like my mom and my dad,” Mayte Velasco Nicolas said.
Velasco Nicolas is the Hispanic and Latino services coordinator at Richland Library Northeast. She said the library continuously works to provide resources for Spanish-speaking families in the area.
“If you are a newcomer, you are very unfamiliar with how the school system works, how everything is digital," Velasco Nicolas said. "You cannot call, sometimes, to ask for information, and the library helps by offering free computers, free internet."
Services don't end there, Velasco Nicolas said.
"They can have printing if they want the registration papers for school; they can print it here," she added. "Also, we have notaries; they are free, too. Also, I do Spanish computer classes just for them to use Google Drive or parent portal, and just to be more in tune of the free resources that we have in Columbia, in Spanish.”
The library offers a section filled with books in Spanish or with English translations -- classics like "Mary Had a Little Lamb" are translated for kids learning English.
“I’m very grateful for Mayte; she was the one who helped me," Esmeralda Lara said. "Without her, my kids and I wouldn’t be where we are today.”
Lara, a mother of four, said the bilingual resources at the library have helped her children be more successful in school, including graduating from high school.
“It’s so good that there’s this staff here that can help us," she said. "When my son graduated from high school, I called them to say I was so grateful and that this achievement wasn’t just my son’s or mine. It was ours because of all their help."
The library will host a bilingual storytime on Thursday, Sept. 26, from 10 a.m. to 11 a.m. and a Hispanic Heritage Month Edition open mic on Friday, Sept. 27, from 6 p.m. to 7:30 p.m.
“They're more aware of the needs because we are Latinos all year around, not just during Hispanic Heritage Month, and the library is aware of that,” Velasco Nicolas said.
Here's a full list of events.