Thank you!

Twenty people pledged $1,325 to the John Trigg Ester Library from their Permanent Fund Dividend through the Pick.Click.Give. program this year, and that means a LOT to us! We know the choices were harder this year, and so we appreciate each donor that much more. Thank  you.

Here's why one person supported the library through the PCG program:

I like the convenience of walking to a neighborhood library rather than going downtown or to the bookstore. A bookmobile doesn't replace that community center feel that a library has, and I want that for our village. The Pick.Click.Give. program gave me a convenient way to donate to a cause I believe in.

Here's one for the community clubhouse

The truth is libraries are raucous clubhouses for free speech, controversy and community.

–Paula Poundstone

Of late, many library members and Facebook fans have been receiving requests for letters of support for the John Trigg Ester Library's capital proposal to the legislature. As members, you all have a wide variety of options to choose from when it comes to opinion or action. You can even ignore the project, focus on other things in your lives, etc. But what is a library truly worth? And why should you support building a "raucous clubhouse"?

Well, here's what some notable people have thought about the value of libraries:

With a library you are free, not confined by temporary political climates. It is the most democratic of institutions because no one—but no one at all—can tell you what to read and when and how.
—Doris Lessing

Cutting libraries during a recession is like cutting hospitals during a plague.
—Eleanor Crumblehulme 

What a school thinks about its library is a measure of what it feels about education.
—Harold Howe  

What is more important in a library than anything else—than everything else—is the fact that it exists.
—Archibald MacLeish

As board members, it is our role to bring the vision of the Ester library to reality in a timely and fiscally responsible fashion. Even if our attempt to gain an appropriation from the Alaska Legislature fails this year, the support we gain will bolster our attempt next year. The JTEL can provide a strong example of thrifty, far-seeing northern-appropriate public construction of the kind that should be supported by the legislature and business. And letters can always be aimed and used for other proposals that we will be crafting and sending to other funders. So please—write a letter of support. Thank you.

Love that Library!

Share the Love!

Each year our Pick.Click.Give. campaign is dedicated to a specific aspect of the John Trigg Ester Library's work. We are still working on gaining the funds to construct our building, but we have enough to do the sitework, and we are hoping that you will sweeten the pot and help us earn more matching funds. This summer, the grand transformation begins!

Then maybe all those books can come out of storage and onto shelves—where people can take them off and read them!

Double Your Dividend Sweepstakes

Donating to one’s favorite nonprofit groups, including the John Trigg Ester Library, through the Pick.Click.Give. program, may be a lot more lucrative this year—for ten people collecting PFDs! the Pick.Click.Give. program is a part of the Alaska Permanent Fund Dividend application designed to increase charitable giving in Alaska, and now 10 lucky Alaskans who donate through Pick.Click.Give. will win through the Double Your Dividend Sweepstakes, announced on Tuesday, March 4.

Here’s how the Sweepstakes works: Those Alaskans who choose to make a Pick.Click.Give. donation to one of the more than 500 qualifying 501(c)(3) Alaska nonprofit organizations (among them 24 libraries and library friends organizations, including the JTEL) when they file their PFD application will be entered into the sweepstakes. All non-anonymous donations made before the PFD application due date of March 31 will count for the sweepstakes. If you've already donated, but anonymously, you can go back in and choose to donate publicly, and become eligible. On Sept. 15, the names of 10 lucky Alaskans will be drawn and the winners will be announced on Oct. 1. The complete rules can be found here, at www.pickclickgive.org/index.cfm/double-your-dividend/.

One of the reasons for the sweepstakes is a technical glitch in January that prevented a lot of Alaskans from being able to make Pick.Click.Give. donations when they filed their PFD applications. The sweepstakes is an incentive to get those Alaskans who didn’t make Pick.Click.Give. donations to go back into their PFD applications and add some. The 2014 PFDs should be much bigger than the PFDs from the last couple of years, which makes this a great time to share the wealth with nonprofit organizations in your communities.

This is the first year the John Trigg Ester Library has participated in the Pick.Click.Give. program, which allows people to donate in $25 increments to their favorite statewide and local nonprofit organizations. When you choose to donate part of your PFD to the JTEL, you support our operations, our endowment, our capital campaign, and our educational programs, which include a winter lecture series on history, science, art, writing, geography, and much more, as well as a seed library program that hosts seed swaps, seedsaving workshops, and a seed collection for checkout.

The Pick.Click.Give. program is available only to people who file their PFD applications on line, and not to those who file by mail. Even though you can’t file a new PFD application after March 31, you can go in to your application and update your Pick.Click.Give. donations through Aug. 31 (but you won’t be entered into the sweepstakes unless you make a donation before March 31).

If you aren’t from Alaska or aren’t eligible for a 2014 PFD, you still can donate to JTEL by sending a check to PO Box 468, Ester AK 99725. Our EIN is 27-1297959. Please let us know if you need a receipt for tax purposes. For more information about the library, please contact us at info@esterlibrary.org.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rF3av66fXE8