We won a grant!

Sherwood Public Library has been selected as one of 300 libraries to participate in Libraries Transforming Communities: Focus on Small and Rural Libraries, an American Library Association (ALA) initiative that helps library workers better serve their small and rural communities.

The competitive award comes with a $3,000 grant that will help provide a library-led Community Reads program in fall, 2021, that will use literature to engage preteens, teens, and adults in conversations about race, racial injustice, and antiracism. 

“We are so proud to be chosen for this amazing opportunity,” said Adrienne Doman Calkins, Library Manager at Sherwood Public Library. “This grant will allow our library to offer community members the opportunity to begin, or continue, their fight against racism and journey towards becoming antiracist through a Community Reads program. This is our first Community Reads project and the topic is one that is timely and crucial for our community.”

Grant funds will be used to purchase multiple copies the books So You Want to Talk About Race by Ijeoma Oluo for adults and This Book is Antiracist by Tiffany Jewell for youth. Books will be given to participants to keep, refer to, and pass along within their own networks. As part of the grant, staff will take an online course in how to lead conversations, a skill vital to library work today. Staff will facilitate online conversations with participants about the books and suggest prompts for guided journal entries to deepen all participants’ learning experiences. 

The Community Reads program is, in part, the Library’s response to the reckoning on racial injustice going on in the Sherwood community, nationally, and globally right now. Intentional reading and discussion will provide participants with the foundational background needed to move from a “not racist” mindset to taking antiracist action to help the community move forward and become more empathetic to its BIPOC (Black, Indigenous and People of Color) members. As always, library staff will do this work without entering into politics, and instead from a point of compassion and endeavoring to support and honor the diverse Sherwood community.

Anyone interested in getting involved or taking part in the conversation is invited to contact Jaime Thoreson at thoresonj@sherwoodoregon.gov or visit sherwoodoregon.gov/library for more information. Those with questions about the goals and initiatives going on at Sherwood Public Library, or wishing to get involved in those decisions, are invited to contact Adrienne Doman Calkins at domancalkinsa@sherwoodoregon.gov. Read about our equity work at sherwoodoregon.gov/library/DEI.

Since 2014, ALA’s Libraries Transforming Communities initiative has re-imagined the role libraries play in supporting communities. Libraries of all types have utilized free dialogue and deliberation training and resources to lead community and campus forums; take part in antiviolence activities; provide a space for residents to come together and discuss challenging topics; and have productive conversations with civic leaders, library trustees and staff.

“Libraries Transforming Communities: Focus on Small and Rural Libraries is an initiative of the American Library Association (ALA) in collaboration with the Association for Rural and Small Libraries (ARSL).”