The Chinese Story Time is a weekly free program initiated by Dr. Zeng, Dr. Zhang, and a handful of enthusiastic volunteers, that teaches children (3 to 10 year old) the Chinese language and culture through storytelling, singing, dancing and drama, hosted at the Arcadia Public Library. The library management fully supported this program as long as it was free and volunteers can help. It became an instant success and attracted many families and even library directors from other neighboring cities.
 
As Arcadia is a city with over 60% Asian residents with majority being Chinese Americans, it is imperative that the city provides its residents and children a free bilingual and culture program. This type of crucial program has been missing for a long time until this summer.
 
However, recently after 10 successful sessions, the Arcadia Public Library announced they could no longer host the program due to various reasons such as staff cut, shortage of funds, schedule conflicts, insurance liabilities, volunteer background checks etc, which all sound like technical and resource issues. We later found out that they are actually replacing staff, not reducing them.
 
After numerous unsuccessful negotiations with the library management, we raised the issue in the city council meeting on 9/3/2019. As a result, the City Manager asked the Library Management to meet with us again to find a solution.  The Library Director was resourceful enough to propose that we change the program into a fee based class in the community center. To many, this is against our initial vision to provide a free program to all kids who are interested in learning Chinese in our city. What’s more concerning is that the extra workload and responsibilities to organize such a class are beyond the volunteers’ capacity.

Like the Eisenhower Park protesters said, if Arcadia is an inclusive city, we welcome all types of people to use our park built with millions of Arcadians' tax money. It is not too much to ask the city and the Arcadia library to sponsor a program that at least 60% of its residents find necessary and valuable.
 
Where there is a will there is a way. We urge that the city staff to work more creatively and start finding true solutions for this humble request per our rights - Keep the Chinese Story Time in the library and make it a free program available to all kids in our city!

「阿卡迪亞中文故事會」是由曾博士和張博士以及一批熱心公益、專業素質優秀的志願者發起的免費傳播中文使用中文的活動。活動在阿卡迪亞公共圖書館舉辦，每週一次、每次一小時，通過講故事、唱歌、跳舞和戲劇等豐富多彩的形式，向3至10歲的孩子們傳授中華語言和文化，吸引和推動孩子們進入中文文化語境，走向自然生動的中文表達。該項目向公眾完全免費，在完全由志願者群策群力的前提下，項目的啓動曾經獲得圖書館管理層的高度支持，館裡為「中文故事會」提供了兒童區最佳位置的活動空間，使得該活動一炮打響，不但吸引來了眾多的家庭和孩子，也引起了周邊城市圖書館館長的關注。

阿卡迪亞是一個擁有超過60%的亞裔居民的城市，居民中大多數人是美籍華人。本市一直以來極為需要向居民尤其是兒童提供免費的中華語言和文化項目。遺憾的是，在「中文故事會「的誕生之前，這樣的一個長期穩定的必備項目幾乎一直是空白。

然而不幸的是，在該活動成功地舉辦了兩個半月（10期）以後，阿卡迪亞圖書館宣佈：由於裁員、資金短缺、時間表衝突、保險責任、志願者背景調查等等問題和原因，他們不能再支持該項目。但這些聽起來都是技術問題和資源問題。後來我們也得知他們並不是裁減員工，而只是更換員工。

與圖書館管理層多次溝通失敗後，志願者們於2019 年 9 月 3 日的市議會會議上發言尋求幫助。會議上，市政經理要求圖書館館長，請她繼續與志願者們商討，以尋求解決方案。圖書館館長為此提出了另一個變通的建議-將該項目改為在社區中心（Arcadia Community Center)舉辦的向市民收費的課程。但是對許多人來說，這違背了為所有有興趣在我們城市學習漢語的孩子提供免費課程的初衷。更重要的是，館長建議的付費中文課程所帶來的額外工作量和所需承擔的責任已經超出了志願者的能力範圍。
正如上次議會會議上關於在艾森豪威爾公園興建籃球場的倡議者所言，如果阿卡迪亞是一個兼容並包的城市，我們歡迎所有人使用用我們阿卡迪亞人數百萬稅金興建的偏於一隅的公園。相對而言，我們要求阿卡迪亞圖書館向一個至少60%的居民認為有必要、有價值的活動提供場地和支持也是一個合情合理的要求，更何況只是每週一小時而已。

辦法總比困難多。我們懇切敦促城市工作人員，積極尋找更具建設性方案，繼續支持「中文故事會」在阿卡迪亞公立圖書館舉辦，並根據我們納稅人的權利，為這個基本的要求找尋真正長期有效解決對策，將「中文故事會」啓動為我市公共圖書館的一個正式的、官方的免費公益項目，向我市所有孩子和家庭開放！