Mohawk Valley Library System

Category: Grants & Awards

  • CE Grant Opportunity – Libraries and Sustainability Virtual Book Club

    ALA has announced the “Libraries and Sustainability” Virtual Book Club, a series of three virtual, interactive conversations about incorporating sustainability into librarianship to be held in November and December 2022: programminglibrarian.org/articles/…

    Library workers who would like to be considered for one of the 100 available spots should apply online by August 19.

    Participation is free but limited to 100 participants. Participants will receive a free print or ebook copy of “Libraries and Sustainability: Programs and Practices for Community Impact,” edited by René Tanner, Adrian K. Ho, Monika Antonelli and Rebekkah Smith Aldrich (ALA Editions, 2021).

    The book club series consists of three 90-minute virtual book clubs. Each session will feature one chapter from “Libraries and Sustainability,” and will offer a live conversation with the chapter’s authors, small-group breakout discussion, and Q&A time with the authors.

    Applicants will be notified of their acceptance by September 5. Sessions will take place over Zoom; the link will be provided to participants once their registration is confirmed.

  • Grant Opportunity – The Yiddish Book Center’s “Stories of Exile” Reading Groups for Public Libraries

    The Yiddish Book Center’s “Stories of Exile” Reading Groups for Public Libraries is a reading and discussion program to engage teens and adults in thinking about experiences of displacement, migration, and diaspora.

    Using Yiddish literature as a portal, the program will feature works in translation that explore narratives which grapple with questions of homelands, journeys, identity, and belonging. Reading groups will compare these works written in Yiddish in the early and mid-20th century to works by contemporary writers from all across the globe. 

    The goals of the program are:

    • to introduce libraries and the public to Yiddish literature in the context of broader explorations of dispossession, exile, migration, and diaspora.
    • to help prompt and inform ongoing discussions about displacement, in the context of war, genocide, climate change, economic and political upheaval, and other conditions of homelessness and relocation in the modern world.

    Participating libraries will organize a reading group for adults and/or for teens aged 16-19, or for a combined group, to discuss three books of Yiddish literature in translation, as well as one book related to a community served by their library.  Libraries will receive books for participants as well as discussion and resource guides. The reading group facilitator from each library will attend a workshop at the Yiddish Book Center in Amherst, Massachusetts to orient them to Yiddish literature in translation. All travel, lodging, and meal costs will be covered by the Yiddish Book Center for each library’s discussion facilitator.

    The Yiddish Book Center will provide virtual public programs and downloadable discussion guides and reading resources for the reading groups.

    Complete details and the application, due August 19, 2022, are available at https://www.yiddishbookcenter.org/language-literature-culture/reading-groups-public-libraries.

  • Grant Opportunity – T-Mobile Hometown Grants Program for Small and Rural Communities

    The T-Mobile Hometown Grants Program intends to help build stronger, more prosperous small towns and rural communities throughout the United States. Up to 100 towns each year for the next five years will receive community improvement grants of up to $50,000 for projects to build, rebuild, or refresh
    community spaces that help foster local connections.

    The focus is on providing support to revitalize community spaces in towns with 50,000 people or less. Examples of eligible projects include revitalizing a town hall, a senior center, a library, or any space where friends and neighbors gather. Elected leaders, town managers and employees, and nonprofit leaders are eligible to submit applications. The full proposal should be three-five pages, and include a “shovel-ready” plan, and up to 5 letters of support.
     
    Deadlines – quarterly, the last day of each quarter.
     
    For more information and to apply, visit the website: t-mobile.com/brand/hometown-grants 

  • Nominate Your Library for a Makeover!

    Scribner, the publisher of Anthony Doerr’s glorious New York Times bestseller Cloud Cuckoo Land, and his Pulitzer Prize winner All the Light We Cannot See, is pleased to work together with the Heart of America Foundation on its “Cloud Cuckoo Land Library Makeover Campaign,” a contest that will award a makeover to an under-resourced public or school library within the continental U.S. Nominations will be accepted nationwide through a dedicated Heart of America site beginning May 25, 2022 and ending June 10, 2022.

    The campaign will seek nominations from libraries with librarians who are “book heroes,” and proposals should describe how a library makeover would impact the library’s community. Heart of America will select up to ten finalist libraries and the finalists will be posted on the site on July 25, 2022, for the public to vote on a winner. The library with the most votes will be notified this summer and will receive the makeover from Heart of America this fall. The makeover might include new furnishings, equipment, paint, carpet, a mural, and funds to purchase more books, depending on need. Up to five runner-up libraries will each receive a selection of more than one hundred adult and children’s books from Scribner and other Simon & Schuster imprints.

  • Grant Opportunity – Ezra Jack Keats Foundation Mini-Grants

    The Ezra Jack Keats Foundation offers 70 minigrants of up to $500 to public schools and public libraries for projects that foster creative expression, working together and interaction with a diverse community.  Great mini-grant programs are creative, collaborative, have the potential to become an annual/recurring event, and benefit children and their communities. The application is available beginning May 30, 2022, with a submission deadline of September 30, 2022. The online application form and complete guidelines are available on the Foundation’s web site.