1. American Dream Starts @ Your Library Literacy Initiative
   
   Deadline: August 26, 2012
   Apply here: application form and details
   Grant amount: $5000 to $15,000
   Purpose of the grant: To help public libraries in Dollar General communities add or expand literacy services for adult English language learners.
   
   

To qualify for a grant, a library needs to ...

• serve a population under 10,000 (usually under 5,000)
• be in a rural area (usually considered to be at least 30 miles from a city with a population over 40,000)
• have a limited operating budget, and
• have an active children's department

Application process:

Apply for a full scholarship to attend "R-Squared — The Risk & Reward Conference" on September 9-11, 2012 in Telluride, Colorado.

Want to attend the 2012 Public Library Association (PLA) Conference in Philadelphia, all expenses paid?
Do you work at a library that serves a population of 50,000 or less?

Make an appointment to drive to Madison and select free books for your library:

Colleen Leddy— director of Stair Public Library in Morenci, Michigan (service population: 3134) — shares her tips for creative ways to provide programs in her article Programming on a (Long, Colorful) Shoestring.

Here are some tidbits:

Build-A-Bear Workshop® is accepting literacy and education grant requests from now through October 2011.