Around My Block: A Bronx Librarian's Lasting Impact

Around My Block tells the story of everyday New Yorkers making last impacts - big and small - in their community. We're starting off with stories about the Bronx. With Around My Block, WFUV News wants to highlight the beauty of our borough.

First up: Roseanna Gulisano.

For kids at P.S. 11 in Highbridge, the library is a sanctuary filled with books carefully picked by and displayed by their librarian, Roseanna Gulisano.

“Dewey Decimal system, forget about it. They go by the pictures. If you don’t display the book or show the book they’re not going to get it," said Gulisano. "Our kids need to see themselves right there. They don’t have enough books where they see themselves.”

The vibrant library is situated inside the 120-year-old school building. Despite the structure's age, Gulisano turned a few bookshelves in a storage room into a warm and inviting space over her years at P.S. 11.

For these students, the library is not just a destination for books. Gulisano provides kids with socks, coats, shoes, backpacks and other essentials through donation programs. When WFUV visited P.S. 11, snow was piled high on the ground and outdoor shots were nearly impossible due to thick white flakes swirling through the air, but no student was without a puffy winter coat and a pair of snow boots.

When Gulisano first started the program, this was not the case. She said she was spurred to action after two girls from Africa came to school in the middle of winter in nothing but small dresses and sandals. The girls got frostbite and an ambulance had to be called. Gulisano was shocked when she asked why an ambulance was at the school and the situation was explained to her. Even as she retold the incident she was visibly shaken.

To meet the needs of her school, Gulisano reaches out to organizations and individuals from around the city and boxes appear nearly every day with donations. The students, parents and staff appreciate everything Gulisano is doing and she said she is driven by what they need.

“Everything is based on the children. No book, no literacy program. Nothing. The kids are the drivers of us.”

Gulisano hosts book fairs and community reading nights where there's not an empty seat, and no one goes home without a book.

She also said when she first came to work in the Bronx from Los Angeles she knew nothing about the borough, but the community in Highbridge welcomed her and she's become attached.

"I'd never taught. I'd never been to the Bronx. New York was new, everything was new," said Gulisano. "I came to that school and fell in love with the Bronx. I fell in love with the Bronx. I fell in love with them because of the families and the way they treated me."

When students come to the library for lessons, they are welcomed by Gulisano with individual composition notebooks, lesson plans written clearly out on white boards, activities on their new Promethean smart board.

When one student came into her class several years back almost non-verbal, Gulisano took the time to pass him books she thought he would like and work with him. By the end of the year she said he had improved a bit and could say his name and a few other words, but she had put him on a path to literacy.

“I saw him on the bus years and years later and he came up to me and said Miss Gulisano I’m so-and-so and I literally felt a sob because I was so happy and he’s in college now and he’s doing great.”

Gulisano makes a difference like this in the lives of almost every single one of her students and recently, she was recognized for her work at P.S. 11 with the Brooke Russell Astor Award, a New York Public Library Award for people making a difference in New York City.

“It was amazing. I was shocked," said Gulisano. "I mean the whole thing was so completely shocking and it’s brought so much to the community. It really is an honor to the community.”

And thanks in part to Gulisano, the Bronx has a book mobile for the first time since the 1950s. The mobile library is staffed by a driver and librarian so that residents of areas without libraries can take out and return books and sign up for library cards.

Gulisano came to the Bronx from California with New York City Teaching Fellows, but now she said she has fallen in love with the community.

"I knew that my purpose was to serve young people," said Gulisano. "And fortunately all the forces were in my favor because of this wonderful community. So I thank the Bronx from the bottom of my heart."