YOUR IMPACT
Thank you, Library Champion!
You make an Impact – 2024 Report
May 2025
Dear Library Champion,
You’re part of a winning team, a community of people who love and support their LA County Library.
Thank you!
Enjoy this report and savor the good you helped achieve in 2024 and that continues today.
Your generosity makes an impact. Why?
Because your LA County Library – 86 locations, a mobile fleet, and a 24/7 digital collection – is a cornerstone of the community.
Because your Library welcomes all. A baby and parent for storytime. A struggling reader getting help and gaining confidence. A teen finding an ebook that tells their story. An older adult discovering a new interest.
Because your Library provides opportunities to explore, learn, and connect – for all.
Your gifts to LA County Library Foundation strengthen your Library – helping fund programs and resources. Promoting the freedom to read, nurturing lifelong learning, and building connection.
You’re part of something wonderful. And we are so grateful for you!
Your LA County Library Foundation
By the Numbers in 2024
$351,000+
invested across 13 program areas for children, teens, and adults throughout LA County
1,500+
total number of donors, including 650+ new donors
28,500+
children, teens, and adults who participated in donor-fueled program
Top ratings for transparency and donor confidence
From literacy and lifelong learning programs, to support for your Library staff and a strategic plan, to inspiring students to explore, you made a meaningful difference in 2024 and you continue to do so today.
You’re building connection, creativity, and engagement. You’re building a stronger and brighter future.
Thank you!
What Library Champions like you are saying…
“The diversity of literary resources the County Library provides needs a loudspeaker to let people know of this richness. The Foundation is that amplifier.”
– Mark C
"I give because the Library makes peoples lives better."
– Lynn G
Summer Discovery Program
This annual celebration of reading for ALL ages – from babies and toddlers to older adults – is a way to keep people reading, and to connect them with great titles, ideas and other people through books, Library programs, and challenges to explore and create.
It’s a well-loved program: 14,251 readers logged 79,196 books! Talk about success, that’s more than 150% of the community goal to read 50,000 books!
Those numbers translate into making lives better – creating connections, encouraging exploration, and helping students continue to learn over the summer.
Funding from Library Champions helped get the word out, as well as providing incentives for participation – with Kindles and gift cards for children, teen, and adult winners.
Other Foundation partners stepped in, too, the Long Beach Aquarium and the Museum of Tolerance with passes and LA Opera with tickets to a performance of Madame Butterfly.
Freedom to Read: Books Unbanned
In late fall 2023, your Library and Foundation joined five other library systems in a national program called Books Unbanned that promotes the freedom to read.
Your Library’s program provides access for any teen anywhere in California to any ebook or e-audiobook in the Library’s entire collection with a Books Unbanned card.
The goal? To encourage and enable young people to explore a range of ideas and information to develop their own informed opinions.
To date, the Foundation has provided $70,000+ to support more than 2,700 teen readers from 418 different cities and purchase more than 1,000 ebooks and e-audiobooks.
These young people tell us you’re making a difference in their lives.
In their own words:
Chelsea: "My parents don’t buy books for me and I want to read, but even my school library doesn’t have a lot of books."
Hannah: "My guardians don't allow me to read lgbtq books."
Joe: "I have to take the bus to my local library and it’s nice to have easier access to books on my tablet."
In short, you make an impact. Thank you.
Freedom to Read: Teen Watch Parties, Reading Challenge
Banned Books Week in October was filled with ways to learn about and celebrate the freedom to read. And the Foundation was pleased, with your help, to step in with support. A Community Day of Action featured watch parties at five libraries.
These Lunch & Learn events included screenings of recorded talks with young adult authors Aminah Mae Safi and Abdi Nazemian, followed by discussions where attendees shared their thoughts and ideas about protecting the freedom to read.
Teens were also challenged to stand strong for their freedom to read – by reading one book (banned or not) and completing two Library challenge activities during Banned Books Week.
Freedom to Read: Poetry of Pride, When Can We Go Back To America? at the Asian Pacific Resource Center
Adults, as well as teens, rallied for the freedom to read. Because book bans and challenges affect everyone. They disproportionately target authors and stories about LGBTQ people and/or communities of color.
Your Library makes sure you can access these and a range of other titles to ensure you can read, learn, and discover what interests you.
Poetry of Pride, hosted by West Hollywood Poet Laureate Jen Cheng, brought hundreds together to celebrate the legacy of LGBTQ poets and their continuing impact on current generations of poets.
Thank you to Collaborate and Southwest Strategies for making it possible for the Foundation to give audience members free copies of the most banned books of 2024.
Ensuring that important stories are remembered and shared, the Asian Pacific Resource Center featured an author talk with Susan Kamei about her book, When Can We Go Back To America?: Voices of Japanese American Incarceration During World War II.
Thank you to Little Tokyo Rotary Club for making this introduction to Susan and other authors telling vital stories and for adding titles to the Library’s Resource Centers.
Images (left, right): Jen Cheng, Susan Kamei
Adult Literacy
Donors funded books, ebooks, and audiobooks for adult readers and supported literacy programs, including LEAMOS Online – a Pre-ESL course for native Spanish speakers with Adult Literacy staff onsite to assist learners at Huntington Park Library and East Los Angeles Library – and Conversation Clubs for Spanish speakers to practice their English skills with other learners.
eBooks and Audiobooks for Blind & Low-Vision Readers
Continuing an initiative they seeded in 2023, the First Presbyterian Church of Santa Monica is meeting that need with ebooks and audiobooks.
Library Collections staff have curated a popular range of titles: from healthy cooking to building relationships, to medical references to career exploration, to wellness and sports, to cultural awareness, and that include non-fiction, novels, memoirs, and mysteries.
Anyone can borrow ebooks and audiobooks: find one you like, and enjoy.
Careers in STEAM: Exploring Energy Technologies
Thanks to the longstanding generosity of Edison International, 15 libraries hosted a series of 3 in-person, hands-on Careers in STEAM programs for teens about different types of energy technologies – electric motors, wind energy, and solar energy. Students learned about the design and engineering process.
In addition, the Library hosted five virtual programs, including a panel of Edison employees and presenters from NASA, LA County Parks, LA County Department of Public Works, LA Metro, and the Roundhouse Aquarium in Manhattan Beach who shared about their work and career paths.
Images: LA County Library
Art, Music, Dance, and Books
The Mellon Foundation helped Claremont Helen Renwick Library meet a community need: more baby- and toddler-oriented music programs.
Staff launched a Baby Band program with the local Claremont School of Music. Soon, babies and their adults were listening to music and incorporating rhythm, music play, and music appreciation into their day-to-day activities.
Older kids also benefited from the Mellon Foundation’s generosity – with arts (springtime flower painting) and percussion workshops, as well as hundreds of new books for children and teen voracious readers.
Images: LA County Library
Building Community
Longtime donor Watson Land Company again provided generous support for educational materials and programs for Carson Library and the community it serves.
Uchenna Nwosu, who grew up in Carson and is now a linebacker for the Seattle Seahawks, is also giving back. Uchenna has funded a Peer Advocate position for three years at Carson Library as part of the Library’s My Brother’s Keeper program. Peer Advocate Megan (with Uchenna at Carson Library) joined the Library team in 2024.
Images: LA County Library/Michael Owen Baker and Uchenna Nwosu Foundation (right)
Megan is connecting with young people in the library and at community events, supporting Library programs and services, and gaining career skills through training and outreach.
The inaugural Uchenna Nwosu Foundation Charity Weekend, including a football clinic and wellness festival, provided opportunities to introduce youth and their families to a range of Library resources.
A major thank you, too, to The Capital Group, for providing crucial operating funds that strengthen your LA County Library and Library Foundation.
One Book, One County Author Talk & Celebration
Images: LA County Library and LA County Library/Michael Owen Baker
Last summer, thousands of readers throughout LA County, united by a single title as part of the inaugural One Book, One County program, formed a formidable group, arguably LA's largest book club.
They read LA Weather by Maria Amparo Escandón (above). Hundreds attended the culminating event, an author talk and festival at Gloria Molina Grand Park.
One Book, One County worked. The program showcased the power of libraries to connect individuals and communities – because of you and the 18 different library systems (that's 204 unique libraries across Los Angeles County) – who joined your Library in this audacious program. You make an impact.
Legacy Gifts: continuing your love for your Library
Culver City resident Jane B loved her Library. Last year, on her passing, she gave the Library Foundation a generous gift, her remaining IRA savings.
She directed that the funds be used where they were most needed. That meant funding core expenses, Library programs, and collections.
It also meant celebrating Jane and continuing her legacy as a Library Champion.
You’re investing now, and like Jane, you might also consider investing in the future with a legacy gift. It’s a meaningful way to celebrate your love for the Library with future generations.
Find out more here. You can also call or email Andrea Carroll, LA County Library Foundation Executive Director with questions or to let us know you've included the Library Foundation in your estate plans.
No matter the size, your gift to LA County Library Foundation makes a meaningful difference for your Library. Thank you for your generosity.
A shout out to YOU, Library Champion!
Library champions give in many other marvelous ways – with monthly and one-time gifts, payroll deductions, employer matches, tribute and memorial gifts, sharing your Library Story, and making gifts from donor advised funds.
YOU make an impact. Thank you for being part of a winning team, building a stronger community and a brighter future!
With gratitude,
Your LA County Library Foundation
Questions? Comments?
Call or email Andrea Carroll, Executive Director
562.940.4189 and acarroll@lacolibraryfoundation.org
Thank you, Library Champion!
You make an impact
