News and Events

YCLF is Participating in the 12th Annual Big Day of Giving on May 2, 2024

Since 2016, the Yolo County Library Foundation (YCLF) has provided financial support to Yolo County Library so it can effectively provide essential literacy, reading and educational resources, services and programs throughout the county.

The National Commission on Reading states, “the single most significant factor influencing a child’s early educational success is an introduction to books and being read to at home prior to beginning school.”

The California Department of Education (2020) reports that only 48% of children in Yolo County read at grade level by 3rd grade.

For this year’s Big Day of Giving, 100% of donations raised will provide funding for Yolo County Library to purchase and distribute free, high quality, age-appropriate children’s books to families and caregivers in underserved communities. YCLF wants families and caregivers to create home libraries and model reading every day. Library staff also provide parents and caregivers with early literacy tips and training to promote and celebrate reading at home.

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Stories on Stage Davis, YCL and YCLF present author Kim Stanley Robinson

Saturday, April 8, 2023, 7:30 PM – 9:00 PM PDT

Richard Brunelle Performance Hall 315 West 14th Street Davis, CA 95616

Go here to register for this event. Registration is free or you may contribute an optional donation.

Join Stories on Stage Davis, Yolo County Library and Yolo County Library Foundation for an evening with bestselling author, Kim Stanley Robinson. Local actors will read Robinson’s short story, Arthur Sternbach Brings the Curveball to Mars, followed by a Q&A with Robinson moderated by Dr. Andy Jones.

The event will include the reading of a story written by the winner of our high school science fiction writing contest.

This event is free. Doors open at 7:00 p.m., and the event will begin at 7:30 p.m.

Kim Stanley Robinson is widely recognized as one of the foremost living writers of science fiction. Born in Waukegan, Illinois, but raised mostly in Southern California, Robinson is the author of twenty-two novels and numerous short stories.

Many of his novels and stories have ecological, cultural, and political themes and feature scientists as heroes. Robinson’s work has appeared in 24 languages and garnered numerous awards, including the Hugo Award, the Nebula Award, and the World Fantasy Award. In 2016 he received the Robert A. Heinlein Award for outstanding science fiction that promotes space exploration. In 2018, Robinson was honored with an Arthur C. Clarke Award for Imagination in Service to Society for his entire body of works.

Robinson has a Ph.D. in English from the University of California San Diego, where he wrote his dissertation about Philip K. Dick. He and his wife, Lisa Howland Nowell, an environmental chemist, have lived in Davis for many years.

Stanley is best known for the Mars Trilogy, and his most recently published works include the science fiction masterpiece about climate change, Ministry of the Future, in 2020, and High Sierra in June 2022, an ode to the California mountain range that has inspired much of his work.

Dr. Andy Jones has been teaching writing classes at UC Davis since 1990. Originally trained as a poet and literary critic, Andy has taught classes at UC Davis on TS Eliot, Film Theory and Criticism, The Principles of Literary Criticism, and the Poetry of the Beat Generation, as well as the Advanced Poetry Writing Workshop. As a Continuing Lecturer in the University Writing Program, Andy enjoys teaching pre-professional writing classes, and counts among his favorites Writing in Fine Arts, Writing in the Professions: Elementary and Secondary Education, UWP 104C: Journalism, and Journalism of Silicon Valley. Andy was named “Educator of the Year” by the Associated Students of UC Davis in 2006.

Formerly coordinator of the University Writing Program’s Computer-Aided Instruction Program, Andy loves to teach in computer classrooms, and now also serves UC Davis as Academic Associate Director of Academic Technology Services, where he advises faculty on instructional technology and recent research in adult learning, helps to oversee a team of instructional designers, and edits The Wheel, the campus Instructional Technology Blog.

Committed to outreach and encouraging cross-disciplinary thinking, Andy has hosted Dr. Andy’s Poetry and Technology Hour on radio station KDVS since 2000. He is also the past Chair of the Cultural Arts and Entertainment Committee of the City of Davis, and the Poet Laureate emeritus of Davis. His recent publications include an essay on teaching with Twitter in Teaching Arts and Science with the New Social Media, on Beat Art and Poetry in Lifescapes Magazine, and an essay on the history of the UC Davis Studio Art MFA Program. His books of poetry include Split Stock, co-authored with Writing Program colleague Brad Henderson, Where’s Jukie?, about raising a son with special needs, and In the Almond Orchard: Coming Home from War, published in 2016. In 2017, he published a book that people who don’t know Andy might actually want to read: Pub Quizzes: Trivia for Smart People. Currently Andy is working on three book projects, and leading a team of friends and interns in running the bimonthly Poetry Night Reading Series at the John Natsoulas Gallery in Davis (see http://www.poetryindavis.com).

Andy lives in Davis with his wife, the author Kate Duren, and their three children, Geneva, Jukie, and Truman. Follow him on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/andyojones and online at http://www.andyojones.com.

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On the 2022 Big Day of Giving, YCLF Raises $8,411.04 for Early Literacy
May 2022

YCLF is grateful to our generous donors who contributed on the Big Day of Giving, which included every YCLF Board member!

100% of the $8,411.04 raised by YCLF donors will provide funding for Yolo County Library to purchase and distribute free, high quality, age-appropriate children’s books to families and caregivers in underserved communities.

YCLF wants families and caregivers to create home libraries and model reading every day. Library staff also provide parents and caregivers with early literacy tips and training to promote and celebrate reading at home.

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Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library Expands in Yolo County
April 2022

(Woodland, CA) – Parents and guardians can register their children ages 0-5 living in Yolo County for Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library. Imagination Library is a book-gifting program that mails a new, free, age-appropriate book each month directly to the homes of registered children from the time they’re born to their fifth birthday.

Inspired by her father’s inability to read and write, Dolly Parton started Imagination Library in 1995 for the children within her home county. Today, her program mails almost 2 million free, high quality books each month to children around the world, no matter their family’s income.

The Yolo County Library Foundation (YCLF), United Way Capital Region, and Yolo County Library (YCL)  have teamed up to expand this program in our area.  As its top funding priority, YCLF provided a $5,000 grant to support this program, which will result in more than 2,000 books being mailed to children, so they can read something new with at home every month.

“By having books in the home and encouraging adults to read to their kids, we’re hoping that when they enter kindergarten, they will be ready to read,” noted Mark Fink, Yolo County Librarian. “Essentially when children enter school ready for kindergarten it’s a good indicator they’ll be reading at grade level by the third grade, and that’s when you make the shift from learning to read to reading to learn, so I’m glad we’re able to expand eligibility for the program for children throughout the County.”

There are four ways a parent or guardian can enroll a child:

• Visit https://yolocountylibrary.org/imagination_library, print and return the completed registration form to any Yolo County Library branch.
• Complete the online form at https://yolocountylibrary.org/imagination_library.
• Complete the online form at https://www.yourlocalunitedway.org/post/dolly-partons-imagination-library
• Email United Way Capital Region: ImaginationLibrary@UWCCR.org

For ideas on how to inspire a love of reading, parents and caregivers can visit Yolo County Library’s “Early Learners” webpage: https://yolocountylibrary.org/learning/early-learners/

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YCLF Received $6,175 During Year End Giving Campaign
January 2022

Board members reached out to community members and stakeholders and asked them to help fund the Yolo County Library’s efforts to better prepare children to read at grade level when then they enter kindergarten.  The campaign raised $6,175, and we want to thank our generous donors.

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YCLF Welcomes Lisa A. Baker to its Board of Directors
November 2021

Lisa A. Baker is both a consultant, and a housing and community development professional, helping state/local governments and nonprofit entities create access to affordable housing, improved economic opportunity and more equitable outcomes for constituents.

Lisa currently works as a consultant, both for CP HR Consulting, as well as for the firm of Lisa A. Baker Consulting and serves as a contract trainer for local agencies through the National Association of Housing and Redevelopment Officials (NAHRO). She is the former CEO for the Housing Authority of the County of Yolo, where she served for 14 years.

She is a graduate of the University of California at Davis and completed both her B.A. and M.A. at UCD.

Lisa believes that early emphasis on literacy and on a good, well rounded, education are the building blocks for future success in life and that libraries are a foundational key to achieving this.

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Yolo County Library Foundation Prioritizes Early Literacy in 2021
November 2021

As a volunteer-run organization, 100% of donations and grants are used to support YCLF’s top funding priority – early literacy. The National Commission on Reading states, “the single most significant factor influencing a child’s early educational success is an introduction to books and being read to at home prior to beginning school.”

In 2021, YCLF:

• Purchased 2,400 children’s books that were distributed during Yolo County Library’s 2021 Summer Reading Program.
• Purchased 1,125 books that were distributed by Yolo County Library staff to children enrolled in Head Start and Early Head Start programs.
• Funded an eBook and eAudiobook collection specifically for children for the Yolo County Library.
• Funded a 3-year subscription to the Tumblebook Library, a database of children’s eBooks that has over 1,100 titles for grades K-6, which have been used over 4,000 times by children in four local school districts.

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Yolo Community Foundation’s Grantee Spotlight:
Yolo County Library Foundation
August 2021

One of Yolo Community Foundation’s Buck Education Grant recipients in 2020 was YCLF. 

What did the Buck Education Grant from the Yolo Community Foundation enable you to accomplish? YCLF was awarded $3,000 from the Yolo Community Foundation’s Buck Education Grant, as well as $1,000 each from YCF’s Stallard Family Fund and Hewitt Family Fund, to support Yolo County Library’s early literacy efforts. These funds, along with a $10,000 grant from YCLF, were used by the Yolo County Library to purchase a three-year subscription to the Tumblebook Library.

The Tumblebook Library is a curated database of children’s eBooks that has over 1,100 titles for grades K-6, and includes animated, talking picture books, audiobooks, read-along chapter books, National Geographic videos, nonfiction books, playlists, as well as books in Spanish. Parents, caregivers and children have 24/7 access to Tumblebooks from their phones, tablets and computers at home. This digital content is age appropriate, interactive, entertaining, bilingual and educational.

Yolo County Library partnered with four local school districts to promote and provide access to Tumblebooks.  Since purchasing the subscription in December 2020, the Tumblebook Library has been used more than 3,000 times, including 866 times by students in the Esparto Unified School District and 1,209 times by students in the Davis Joint Unified School District.

One learning specialist noted: “I use Tumblebooks for struggling readers, as well as a fun engaging activity for good readers who are at times reluctant to read. During silent reading times I make Tumblebooks available so students with reading challenges can select the same books all their friends are reading and read along with the audio feature. Audiobooks like Tumblebooks help students improve word recognition, decoding skills, and vocabulary, while modeling fluent oral reading. To improve a student’s decoding skills and sight word recognition, it is helpful if a student can see which word is being read as they listen and follow along.”

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Yolo County Library Foundation
Supports Digital eBook Collection for Children and Youth
March 9, 2021

Yolo County Library is now offering popular eBooks and eAudiobooks which are immediately available without waiting. You can see each day’s selection by visiting Yolo County Library’s Overdrive collection on the Library’s website or through the Libby app.

The digital Lucky Day collection was made possible, in part, with the generous support from the Yolo County Library Foundation.

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Yolo County Library Foundation
Strengthens Family and Youth Reading Programs
March 6, 2021

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Mark Fink

The Yolo County Library Foundation (YCLF), a local 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, is proud to announce a $15,000 gift to the Yolo County Library to advance its mission to “provide access for all to ideas that inform, entertain, and inspire.”  The gift reflects YCLF’s commitment to strengthening family and early literacy in Yolo County and, in turn, building community resilience.

A portion of the YCLF gift will be used to purchase eBooks for youth and teens to enhance the Library’s “Lucky Day” collection, which provides instant access to digital versions of current popular reading materials. The remainder of the gift will go to purchase books that will be distributed to families with young children in Yolo County.  The gifts are part of a broader YCLF goal to ensure that every child reads at grade level by 3rd grade in Yolo County.  Yolo County Librarian Mark Fink believes that these concerted efforts will yield generational results. “Parents and caregivers are their children’s first teachers,” Fink noted, “and by providing free, high-quality, age-appropriate books and early literacy tips, we can help them model positive reading behavior for their children and make learning to read a fun family activity.”

This donation supplements an earlier gift YCLF made to the Yolo County Library to fund a three-year subscription to the TumbleBooks Library. The TumbleBook Library is a curated database of children’s eBooks that has over 1,100 titles for grades K-6, and includes animated, talking picture books, read-along chapter books, National Geographic videos, nonfiction books, playlists, as well as books in Spanish. Additional funding for this digital literacy resource was received from the Buck Education Grant from the Yolo Community Foundation, the Meg and Tom Stallard and Bret Hewitt Donor Advised Funds.

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Yolo County Library Foundation Thanks Our 2020 Donors
January 2021

In 2020 Yolo County Library received donations from 93 individuals, families and charitable organizations. Every penny donated will be used to provide direct support for Yolo County Library’s early literacy efforts.

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Yolo County Library Foundation
2020 Year End Giving Campaign
December 31, 2020

In this challenging year, there have been some wonderful surprises.  The Yolo County Library Foundation organized its first Year End Giving Campaign. Board members reached out to community members and stakeholders and asked them to help fund the Yolo County Library’s efforts to better prepare children to read at grade level when then they enter kindergarten.  The campaign raised $8,350, and we want to thank our generous donors.

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Shyam Shinde Memorial Fund
December 2020

Mr. Shinde’s family established the Shyam Shinde Memorial Fund to honor his love of reading, and his weekly visits to the Mary L. Stephens Davis Branch Library.  Donated funds will be used to purchase books that will be distributed to local families to establish literacy-rich learning environments in their homes.

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Giving Tuesday
December 1, 2020

Giving Tuesday was created in 2012 as a simple idea: a day that encourages people to do good. Since then, Giving Tuesday has grown into a global movement that inspires hundreds of millions of people to give, collaborate, and celebrate generosity. We participated in Giving Tuesday for the first time on December 1, 2020 and raised $2,012.56.  Thank you to our generous donors!

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YCLF Board Chair, Sharon Hallberg, to be Honored at National Philanthropy Day Event
November 17, 2020

Sharon Hallberg, YCLF Board Chair, will be recognized for her five decades of advocacy for library services in Yolo County on National Philanthropy Day, November 17th.  The event is being presented by the Yolo Community Foundation.

In addition to serving at the Board Chair of the Yolo County Library Foundation, Sharon chairs the Yolo County Library Advisory Board.  Sharon represents the City of Davis on the Yolo County Library Advisory Board, a position she has held for three decades.

Sharon served as a teacher-librarian at Davis High School for 35 years, and advocates frequently on behalf of the Friends of the Davis Public Library, the Friends of the Yolo Branch Library, and for the enhancement of library services throughout Yolo County.

On November 17, 2020, Yolo Community Foundation is hosting a virtual program featuring a State of the Nonprofit Sector presentation with updates on the health of Yolo County’s organizations, as well as a celebration of volunteers and donors, including Sharon, who made a significant impact this year.

Register for this event and join us to honor Sharon’s work supporting Yolo County library services.

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Yolo County Library Foundation Receives Buck Education Grant to Support Early Literacy
October 2020

With grant and matching funds from YCLF, the Yolo County Library will provide all parents, caregivers and children who have library cards with 24/7 access to Tumblebooks, an online tool they can access from their phones, tablets and computers at home. This digital content is age appropriate, interactive, entertaining, bilingual and educational.

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