Americans for Libraries Council Establishes Children's Book Program for Gulf

-- Library Journal, 10/05/2005

Americans for Libraries Council has announced establishment of the Gulf Coast Libraries Renewal Fund with a lead gift of $100,000 from philanthropist Dorothy Lemelson to carry out the Lemelson-Gulf Coast Libraries Children's Book Program. The Fund will not only help redevelop the many libraries lost or gravely damaged in Hurricane Katrina, but will also support surviving libraries as front line resources for displaced families and adults displaced. The new fund will enable libraries in Louisiana, Alabama, and Mississippi to distribute books directly to children displaced by the storm. "One overlooked story of the Katrina disaster has been the loss of reading materials for children," said Dorothy Lemelson, a philanthropist from Lake Tahoe, NV. She is chair of the Lemelson Foundation, a not for profit foundation which she founded with her late husband Jerome.