Mérida English Library 2024 Annual Report
Our last year at the Mérida English Library was a good one, with a full calendar of activities of all sorts, plus continued expansion of our collection of circulating materials. With an increased numbers of visitors and residents, both foreign and local, returning to or discovering MEL for the first time, we added 317 new members - families, students and other individuals -and our total active membership count is almost 700. We appreciate and thank you for your support, as memberships are the financial foundation of our operation.
Our collection of circulating materials continues to grow, as we added 1,535 new items - book and puzzles - to our catalog in 2024. This includes 206 books and six puzzles purchased by the Collections Committee using library funds. We are happy that these purchases allow us to add specific titles that our members would like available to them at the library, but you can see we still appreciate AND NEED your donated items. Our current collection of books and puzzles now numbers more than 19,250.
We are also proud of and grateful for our team of volunteers and staff. Volunteer efforts continue to be the lifeblood of the Mérida English Library, with almost 300 people donating their time in 2024 to make MEL the dynamic and vibrant place it is. These efforts come to us in a variety of ways: our volunteer Board of Directors, the committee that manages our library collections, the front desk staff, tour organizers and helpers, leaders of Children’s Storytime, subject-matter experts who share their knowledge through workshops, classes and lectures, English-speaking hosts in our language exchange and mentorship programs, homeowners who allow the Wine Tastings and House & Garden Tours to visit their houses, and people who help out for special events.
Any organization that relies on volunteer expertise is likely to experience turnover and the Mérida English Library is no exception. This year, we said a sad goodbye to three dedicated long-time volunteers. Evonne Von Boeck and Ken Scott organized and operated the fan-favorite Santa Ana Gallery Tour for many years, and Evonne also served on our Library Collections Committee and as a front desk volunteer and was especially instrumental in organizing and expanding our children’s collection. Barry Zahn has stepped away from his role as MEL’s day-to-day treasurer and, while he continues to serve on our Board of Directors, we sorely miss his calm guidance in all matters financial. Words can not express how grateful we are to these individuals for their invaluable contributions to MEL’s operation.
In addition to this army of volunteers, we also have five paid staff members: Karime, our administrator, Alfonso, the outreach coordinator, Manuel who does our graphic design and manages our social media accounts and website, and the housekeeping/maintenance people Hermy and Hector.
We are also proud of the services we were able to provide to the community in 2024:
We continue our Monday night Conversaciones con Amigos, Wednesday evening MEL Talks, Saturday Children’s Storytime, and Monthly MEL social nights which are now punctuated with the occasional gleeful “BINGO!” We hosted the Mérida Writers Group, Alcoholics Anonymous, the monthly Fiction & Friends Book Club, and Prose & Poetry Open Mic Nights, a debate club for teens, and seminars on astrology and non-violent communication. We held our third community posada, including a holiday donation drive for Refettorio and Evolución, which has quickly become a much-beloved event. We also continue to provide a home base for The Gorro Group, a team of knitters and crocheters who meet twice a month to produce caps for children suffering from cancer, Democrats Abroad which provides valuable voter assistance to US citizens regardless of party affiliation, Yucatan Giving Outreach, and the International Women’s Club. We hosted visits from several area public schools, taking this opportunity to educate local children about all the things MEL has to offer. Finally, we’ve hosted members of the mosquito-abatement team for a presentation on mosquito control and an ongoing program of larvicide distribution, and representatives from the US consulate and the US Federal Benefits Unit who distributed important information on a variety of topics to US citizens. We also enjoyed a visit from the Mérida Ayuntamiento who informed attendees about plans for the new administration and offered opportunities for participation.
One of the highlights of 2024 was MEL’s partnership with Children’s Rehabilitation Institute Teleton (CRIT), a charity that provides assistance to children in need. Thanks to the support of kind members of the MEL community, we were able to fund the purchase of a custom wheelchair for Jorge, a nine-year-old boy with Duchen Dystrophy. Jorge and his family came to MEL and the CRIT team presented him with this life-altering device, much to the surprise and delight of his family. A big “thank you” to all who donated!
MEL and the US Consulate also continued their collaboration on the English Practice Mentorship Program, which pairs native English-speaking mentor volunteers with local college students to enhance their skills and confidence in making oral presentations, writing effective resumes & cover letters, and interviewing. This innovative program has become a formal university-level course at the Autonomous University of Yucatan (UADY) and the Universidad Politécnica de Yucatan, and has the goal of helping the students become more competitive in applying for positions in English-speaking institutions and to improve their overall career prospects. Twenty members of the MEL community served as mentors in 2024, and 30 students participated.
Our support for local authors remains strong, as we hosted our first ever Local Author Book Fair in March. This event allows MEL members who have published work to present their books to the public. We are happy to report that our invited authors sold 83 books on this day, plus each had the opportunity to read from their work. It really was a magical event, enjoyed by authors and readers alike. We also had several individual book presentations during 2024, affording other authors the chance to reveal their work to the public. We plan to continue these efforts into 2025. In the meantime, please take the opportunity to check out our Local Author bookshelves, where you can purchase books to support these talented individuals. A portion of the proceeds go to MEL to fund the purchase of new books for our collection.
We took MEL “on the road” at the annual conference of Feria Internacional de la Lectura Yucatán (FILEY), the region’s largest convention on literature. MEL Staff and volunteers took our Children’s Storytime to the conference, much to the delight of attendees of all ages.
Our calendar of regular programs and events that fund Library operations, such as the MEL Wine Tastings, the Artist Studio Tour, the Original MEL House & Garden Tour, and the Santa Ana Gallery Tour all had good years in 2024. While these are our major activities for fundraising, we also hosted several smaller events that provide income: yoga and tai-chi sessions, a Drag Bingo night, poetry-writing workshops, crochet workshops, art history workshops, language courses, Wine-and-Paint events, and four bazaars that support local artists and craftspeople. We also had a family-friendly concert by Cuarteto Yucatan. Thank you to everyone who helped to organize the events and who participated in them - your hard work and ticket purchases keep our Library running!
The MEL Original House & Garden Tour is celebrating twenty years of existence and has cemented itself among the city’s most popular activities. Under new management this year, the Tour implemented a brand new series of evening tours, allowing visitors to see the magic of Mérida at night. These tours were immediately a popular success, and the homeowners were delighted to present their houses in a “new light”.
New this year, we hosted a fun and festive Luau in July at the east-side event center "El Jardín". Our Outreach Coordinator, Alfonso, enlisted the services of many volunteers and together they put together a real Hawaiian-style event complete with a live performance of Hula and Ori Tahiti dance and music by the “Fiesta Hawaiana” Dance Academy and a hula-hoop competition.
Of course, the main event at MEL in 2024 was not really an event at all, but rather the closure of the library for two months this summer to facilitate major renovations and repairs - an extensive series of projects that required us to rely on earnings from last year’s fundraising to subsidize. We completely redid the courtyard patio and added an additional patio and storage units behind the classroom. More importantly, we added much-need shelf space to the Judd Dolle room, the children’s area and the fiction area to support our ever-growing collection. All of this, we hope, will allow us to serve our MEL community better and more efficiently in 2025 and beyond.
We strive to expand our range of activities and events, so that more people in our community may benefit from the work we do. Please do not hesitate to send your questions, suggestions and comments to us at info@meridaenglishlibrary.com. For all the best news and information, visit us at meridaenglishlibrary.com or subscribe to our newsletter.
Click here to review the MEL 2024 Annual Financial Report.
