Donate now to support programming and outreach at KDL

From Meet Up and Eat Up, which addressed childhood hunger and provided Summer Wonder activity bags for children, to virtual visits at foster homes and senior centers to home delivery of Wi-Fi hotspots, Kent District Library has provided greatly-needed resources, programs and services during the COVID-19 pandemic. On behalf of KDL, thank you for your support, enabling us to serve our community.

There are an estimated 24,000 households within the KDL service area without broadband access, and many teachers and students have transitioned to remote and hybrid learning. KDL is helping to close the internet gap in Kent Count by circulating over 800 mobile Wi-Fi hotspots to patrons.

While distance learning is difficult in its own right, distance learning while hungry is even harder. In Kent County, the percentage of people experiencing hunger increased from 11% before COVID-19 to a current rate of 15%. To help address this, KDL partnered with Feeding America West Michigan to host the Meet Up and Eat Up program at 11 branches and the Bookmobile, where we served more than 5,000 free lunches. Additionally, young children received take-home STEAM (science, technology, engineering, art and mathematics) projects that were part of KDL Summer Wonder.

With your support, we can do even more to help students, parents and teachers who are facing unprecedented challenges in education. Some of the new and expanded initiatives include:

• Grab-and-go learning packs for students, with STEAM (science, technology, engineering, art and math) projects
• Scholastic Teachable for teachers and home schoolers, providing lesson plans, mini-books and activity sheets
• Online homework resources, such as encyclopedias and databases
• Early literacy and learning resources, like Pebble Go, which is geared toward grades pre-k to 3rd grade, featuring animals (including dinosaurs) and social studies sections. Easy-to-navigate visual interface for emerging readers.

Please consider giving an end-of-year gift and join us in expanding and launching several new resources and services to support learning from home. 

Sincerely,

Lance Werner, Executive Director

Christine Mwangi, Development Manager