Friends of the Mercer Island Library

The Mercer Island Library is looking for a group of volunteers to help the staff build a literacy garden.

Tully’s Coffee and the Pomegranate Center are working together on civic projects by providing grants to build new public gathering places.

The King County Library System has decided to apply for a grant to build a Literacy Garden for children at the Mercer Island Library. The idea behind this concept is to create a natural space where children can explore nature via outdoor reading areas, as well as guided walks that encourage them to read and learn about their environment. KCLS is also hoping to incorporate an area in the garden where librarians can offer story times and programs to complement the garden and enhance children’s love of the outdoors, learning and literacy.

What the Mercer Island Library needs are volunteers to help them make this happen. The Library needs two groups of volunteers:

1. Community Members: the Library will need between 30 and 50 of these. The commitment is to participate in community meetings, design workshops and construction (there will be 2-3 two hour meetings) and to volunteer to help with the construction of the garden which should take between three and five days;
2. Public Space Rangers: the Library will need between three and five of these. These volunteers are professionals from the design, construction, and fabrication fields who will donate relevant skills and expertise to the project design and construction. The commitment will be about four hours of training, participation in design workshops, plan development and construction plans and participation in the garden construction. The Library specifically will need people with experience in architecture, landscape architecture, and master gardeners.

Please call or email either Amy Eggler or Christine Anderson at the Mercer Island Library (206-236-3537 or mercerislandlibrary@kcls.org) by March 31st if you are interested in volunteering. If the grant proposal is accepted the project will begin in May and conclude by December 31, 2011.