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YOUR IMPACT                                              

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Dear Library Champion,

 

Looking for connection?  Access to a spectrum of books, ideas, and resources...for free?  

That’s your LA County Library – made stronger with you and your LA County Library Foundation.

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Thank you, Library Champion! 

Your Impact – 2022 Report

 

            LA County Library Foundation looks back to 2022 with gratitude for you, Library Champion.  With your Library Foundation, you helped fuel Library programs and services for children, teens, and adults across our vast county – with 85 unique and welcoming community libraries, a mobile fleet, and a 24/7 digital library. 

 

            From reading and lifelong learning programs, to support for your Library staff, to inspiring students to explore, you made a meaningful difference.  In a time of challenge and demand, you helped build connection, creativity, and engagement. 

 

            Thank you for stepping up, for helping meet that need with your gifts to LA County Library Foundation and your commitment to your Library.

 

            I hope you’ll enjoy this review of what you, with your LA County Library Foundation, helped make possible in 2022, and that you’ll savor what lies ahead and the opportunity to help do even more.

 

            Last year, against a national backdrop of plummeting student scores for reading and math, and a growing demand for connection at all ages, Library Champions stepped up.  You supported a range of Library programs that inspired learning, engagement, and creative thinking. 

Images: LA County Library

 

Your generous gifts helped fuel participation in Summer Discovery Program – a celebration of reading for ALL ages, from babies and toddlers to older adults.  12,683 readers logged 41,188 books!  That's not to mention the nearly 11,000 people who worked on Library activity challenges.  Those numbers translate into making lives better - creating connections, encouraging exploration, and helping students continue learning over the summer.

 

            With you, and generous support from Via Care Community Health Center, the Foundation supported Teen Read Month.  Teens celebrated all things related to teens and reading, with a special BINGO game, curated booklists, and with DIY and in-library activities. 

 

            Tweens and teens explored potential careers and issues of sustainability in five fields – entomology, space exploration, waste management, public works, and marine ecology – thanks to Careers in STEAM funded by Edison International. 

 

            Ten libraries provided 1,250 program-related activity kits, and approximately 900 viewers attended three virtual programs (Ballona Creek Trash Interceptor Pilot Project, NASA’s Journey to Mars, and Pride and Prejudice and Scorpions).

Image:  Monica Almeida/LA County Library

 

Thanks to a grant from the Mellon Foundation for arts for youth at the Claremont Helen Renwick Library, teens are finding its graphic novel section “...brand new and bursting at the seams!  Our teens, who are so engaged with digital media, really appreciate the mix of art and storytelling.” 

 

            The Mellon Foundation also funded a series of Theatre of Hearts arts workshops for children and teens, and LA Opera’s Sing Out Loud for children and families at the library.

 

            Student creativity was on display with the Library’s 43nd Annual Bookmark Contest.  The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors selected 20 kindergarten

through high school winners, from nearly 10,000 entries. 

 

            Pick up a bookmark at your community library.  Special thanks to Faring and you, Library Champions, for sponsoring the contest.

“As older people, our eyes get tired, and listening to a book is so relaxing. It’s rare I watch TV anymore...just the Detroit Tigers and maybe something from Hulu. Otherwise, I turn to an audiobook.”

     – Alice S.

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             A disproportionate number of older adults, and people with diabetes, have low vision, and a gift from the First Presbyterian Church of Santa Monica seeded a Foundation initiative to meet that need with ebooks and audiobooks, an effort that continues. 

 

            Titles purchased to date range from healthy cooking to building relationships, to medical references to career exploration, to wellness and sports, to cultural awareness and inclusion to healthy cooking, and include non-fiction, novels, memoirs, and mysteries.

 

            The Carson Library and community continue to benefit from generous support from the Watson Land Company for education materials and programs.

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Image: Mike Baker

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“Thanks to my parents, we were introduced to the Library early on.  We benefitted immensely....”

– Uchenna Nwosu, linebacker for the Seattle Seahawks 

 

Uchenna Nwosu, who grew up in Carson and is now a linebacker for the Seattle Seahawks, is also giving back to the community. 

 

            Uchenna is funding (over three years) a Peer Advocate at Carson Library as part of the Library’s My Brother’s Keeper program.  The Peer Advocate will connect with young people in the library and at community events, support Library programs and services, and gain skills through training and outreach.  Stay tuned....

 

A shout out to YOU, Library Champion!

 

            Your Library is a cornerstone of the community, a place that welcomes all, and that provides opportunities for socioeconomic success.

 

            It’s not an easy role to play, and it’s one at which your Library excels – this

summer winning the nation’s top honor for libraries and museums, the National Medal for Museum and Library Service.

 

            You’re part of a winning team, and one that’s needed more than ever.  Thank you for standing strong with your Foundation and Library. 

 

            Library Champions gave in myriad generous ways:

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  • Monthly and one-time gifts

  • Donations from your paycheck

  • Multiplying your impact with matching gifts from

       your employer

  • Celebrating with tribute & memorial gifts

  • Responding to matching challenges

  • Celebrating your birthday with a Facebook Fundraiser

  • Sharing your Library Story

  • Giving through your Donor Advised Fund

  • Celebrating your love for the Library with future

       generations with your estate gift

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            Thank you, too, to the Ralph M. Parsons Foundation and Amazon, who gave generously to help power the Library. 

 

            Their gifts and yours supported programs and operations, including support for Library staff, and helped fuel a vital component of our work – engaging the community – you – to build deep and widespread support for the Library.

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            Your voice matters.  You’re vital to shaping your Library.  Last fall, thousands of Library goers participated in a series of five virtual Community Feedback Sessions and an online survey that asked, “What do you want and what do you need?” 

image: Monica Almeida/LA County Library

 

You answered decisively and with love for your Library.  These discussions are fueling the Library’s work today as it maps a strategic course for the next five years.

           

            LA County Library Foundation, in turn, will listen and plan.  With you, we’ll continue building deep and widespread community support for the Library, working to fill more of the gap between what Library programs and services cost, and what public funds cover. 

 

            Thank you for your support.  With you and your Library, we’ll build a brighter today, and tomorrow.

 

With gratitude,

 

LA County Library Foundation

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Click here to read the Foundation's 2021 Impact Report

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