In 2024, ALS approved all of our available Mini Grants. Member Libraries of all types used their creativity and these funds to provide their community with helpful technology, programs, books, and more! Thank you to all libraries who applied for these Mini Grants in 2024. Read more to see the successful outcomes of this year’s Mini Grants, and to find inspiration for your own Mini Grant and project ideas!
Project Name: Brodini Comes to Calumet
Melanie Lefebvre, Calumet Public Library
Outcomes of the Project: We invited Brodini to our 3rd Annual Kids & Cars in the Park. He is an impressive performer who finds a way to interact so easily with families. Brodini provides a sensational show of magic and comedy that encourages a healthy environment for families to have fun- TOGETHER! Even before the show and afterwards he loves to interact with the children. It provided a relaxing & fun time for families to enjoy together! LOVED hearing all the laughter!!! We took attendance and had many comments afterwards to say how much they enjoyed the show!
Project Name: Portable Kitchen
Sue Sowers, Hoyt Lakes Public Library
Outcomes of the Project: This grant provided us with the funding to try something new that brought in patrons who have never been to our library. They all said they learned something new, (including the staff), and were excited for our next one. Having these programs helps to show people how to eat healthier with items they can easily grow themselves, and provide them with alternatives to processed foods.
Project Name: Small Refrigerator with Freezer for Library Events
Kelli Pelland, Baudette Public Library
Outcomes of the Project: We will now have a freezer to keep ice cream for events, plus food for the hundreds of children that attend library events in the summer.
Project Name: Story Time Carpets for Children’s Room
April Fountain, Hibbing Public Library
Outcomes of the Project: We had three rugs in the children’s room that we purchased in 2015. They have seen so many programs, events, and much much more. Unfortunately, we had to pull them and with this grant we were able to purchase new rugs! This grant helped bring our children’s room back to life! To gather and measure our project outcomes we will keep statistics for every program that we utilize. We just put them in the children’s room today 11-4-24 and tomorrow is my first story time using the new rugs!
Project Name: Panther Den
Janet Hart, South Ridge School Library
Outcomes of the Project: Panther Den – Comfy area for our High School students to relax, unwind, read a good book or finish homework. They love the new comfy area, helps our students relax. We will measure outcomes by attendance, the area is always full of students 🙂
Project Name: Laminator, Headphones and Summer Reading Supplies
Liv Mostad-Jensen, Coleraine Public Library
Outcomes of the Project: We have used the laminator for several library projects and programs including pressed flower bookmarks. It was also used by a pair of patrons for a graduation party project. The other supplies were used for successful summer reading programs and the recycling activity boxes have been very popular with visiting school classes. We measured the success by the usage of the laminator and anecdotal stories, such as those mentioned in the prior answer.
Project Name: Library History Celebration
Madeline Jarvis, Two Harbors Public Library
Outcomes of the Project: The Two Harbors Public Library used a $250 mini grant to throw a 115 year birthday party for our historic Carnegie building. Funds were used to purchase limited edition vinyl THPL stickers and plates and cutlery for birthday cake. (We leveraged this grant to secure another donation for the cost of 3 Costco sheet cakes.) We wanted to celebrate the library’s birthday not only to acknowledge our building’s history, but also to create interest and enthusiasm in the library’s future. We are in the midst of research for our 2025-2028 strategic plan and passed out planning surveys during the party, and received over 50 completed surveys back during the event.This project helped our patrons connect their stories with the library’s history as well as provide input into the 2025-2028 strategic plan.We had over 50 survey responses collected during the event, as well as 8 patrons who donated their written memories to the library’s archives.
Project Name: Fiber Arts Month Tassel Take and Make
Crystal Whitney, Cook Public Library
Outcomes of the Project: Due to the flood damage to the library in June, most summer reading programs were cancelled. We also cancelled all events through the end of the year including our annual Fiber Arts Month celebration in October. This take and make activity allowed us to provide an outreach opportunity to our patrons while the library is under reconstruction. We distributed 30 kits to our patrons. We included comment cards but at the time of this report have not received any cards back. Those who picked up the kits were happy to get them.
Project Name: Recreational Materials
Kevin McGrew, The College of St. Scholastica
Outcomes of the Project: This project provided recreational materials, in the form of popular reading books and board games, for St. Scholastica Library patrons. This recreational materials project serves two purposes, to revive the library as a place, and to provide additional resources supporting student mental health. We can look at item circs to determine if they are being used. The materials are still being processed and are not yet available for check out.
Project Name: Chad Lewis tour
Sarah Villanueva, Duluth Public Library
Outcomes of the Project: We invited Chad Lewis up in September to have him tour our three library branches. He had a great audience and our patrons were interested in what he presented about. In leading up to our writing event with NaNoWriMo, Chad inspired a lot of our patrons to research the history in the community around them. He also has a great flair for finding the weird and the haunted, and I know more than one of our patrons were excited to search for their own ghosts and aliens. We had good attendance, I know that word of mouth helped and we averaged 10-15 at all of our locations.
