Aloha Community Library Association raked in $25,000 in grants in 2013

Aloha Community Library summer reading program
Angel Beltran, 6, enjoys cotton candy while his sister, Ashley, 8, gives him bunny ears at the Aloha Community Library's summer reading kick-off celebration in June. (Anna Marum/Beaverton Leader)
Anna Marum | The Oregonian/OregonLive By Anna Marum | The Oregonian/OregonLive The Oregonian
Email the author | Follow on Twitter
on December 13, 2013 at 5:38 PM, updated December 13, 2013 at 5:39 PM

It's been a good year for the Aloha Community Library. The non-profit library has extended its hours, increased its circulation and received a total of $25,612 in grants.

The Aloha Community Library Association began fundraising two years ago to open the first library in Aloha, a town often cited by residents as the "stepchild" of Beaverton and Hillsboro. With the help of more than $50,000 in donations and grants, the library opened on Sept. 22, 2012.

Since it opened, the money has continued to roll in, for which association President Doug Hoy is very thankful. In addition to applying for grants and asking for donations, the library is also operating in some ways like a small business.

"Anything we can do legally to support the library, we're doing," Hoy said.

This includes selling books online and holding special retail events, like this month's Book-tique Holiday Sale at the library, featuring books and handmade goods for sale.

Though money from the sales helps, grant money is crucial, especially as the library grows and expands, Hoy said.

"We can't just sit on our hands," he said. "It's a constant battle ... We must grow every year for the next couple of years to attract public dollars."

For the current fiscal year, which began July 1, Hoy projects that about 20 percent of the library's budget will come from grants, including those already received.

The library received eight grants this year, the most notable among them a $15,000 grant from Washington County's Strategic Investment Program to design a new, larger library.

The Aloha Community Library also received a $5,000 matching grant from Washington County Cooperative Library Services for development and the purchase of materials.

Most recently, the library was granted $1,800 from the Cultural Coalition of Washington County to expand its resources for the Hispanic community. 

If the library passes a few hurdles, it may become a member of Washington County Cooperative Library Services by 2016, which would make it eligible to receive county funding and share materials with other libraries in the cooperative.

"It's breathtaking how much we've done in a short amount time, and this grant history reflects that," Hoy said. "We hope to continue to grow as we have grown in the past year."

-- Anna Marum
http://www.oregonlive.com/aloha/index.ssf/2013/12/aloha_community_library_associ_1.html
www.oregonlive.com
crawl=CC-MAIN-2016-22
104543
application/http; msgtype=response
sha1:42EMUBCJ2ESGDC64EPDB5UQEJCO5JN75
<urn:uuid:503dcc66-acf7-4c91-b1c9-57cceddb7374>
2016-05-29T06:11:07Z
68.142.108.236
sha1:NR25UIKOZTBBRDK34L454WBSL4GIKKUO
<urn:uuid:0ecebb94-0a26-4f28-a323-d977db526d82>
http://www.oregonlive.com/aloha/index.ssf/2013/12/aloha_community_library_associ_1.html
length
response
<urn:uuid:8716e7c6-929f-4934-9523-e3cb30773354>
robots: classic
hostname: ip-10-185-217-139.ec2.internal
software: Nutch 1.6 (CC)/CC WarcExport 1.0
isPartOf: CC-MAIN-2016-22
operator: CommonCrawl Admin
description: Wide crawl of the web for May 2016
publisher: CommonCrawl
format: WARC File Format 1.0
conformsTo: http://bibnum.bnf.fr/WARC/WARC_ISO_28500_version1_latestdraft.pdf