Festival Donates $8500 to Kansas Libraries
On Friday, August 29, the Kansas Book Festival hosted four librarians from under-resourced Kansas libraries at the State Library of Kansas, awarding grants to support proposed enhancements. Five grant-winning projects were selected in all, from a pool of 40 proposals, and the donated funds will bring improvements to school or public libraries in Bird City (far NW Kansas), Delphos (north of Salina), Hoisington (north of Great Bend), Eureka (east of El Dorado), and Wichita. With those grants, the libraries will update nonfiction for children, purchase short chapter books to encourage early readers, provide culturally diverse books for a school with a diverse student population, add a playful literacy computer for toddlers, and supply Kindle tablets for a library in need of newer technology. The library grant program of the Kansas Book Festival was begun by Mary Brownback 14 years ago when she, as the First Lady of Kansas, brought the Festival to Topeka. Since then, the Festival has granted $122,500 to libraries across the state.
