The Sanibel Public Library Foundation hosted a luncheon with author MARTHA HALL KELLY on April 6, 2022 at the Sanibel Community House.
This year’s luncheon was the tenth annual Lunch with the Author event, which directly supports the work to enhance and enrich your library experience. To add your name to the invitation mailing list, email: authorluncheon@comcast.net
About the Foundation
Sanibel Public Library Foundation is a nonprofit organization that has been raising funds and advocating for our premier public library since 2006. Foundation grants to the Sanibel Public Library supplement ad valorem tax dollars, enhancing and enriching programs and services.
Many innovative services were developed by the Sanibel Public Library with grants and gifts from the Sanibel Public Library Foundation and its generous donors:
- The Foundation’s Joan Hunt Cory Children’s Fund has matched gifts from the Sanibel-Captiva Kiwanis and Rotary Club of Sanibel-Captiva to provide children’s book kits, books, and the Early Literacy Corner—designed to develop pre-reading and social skills for our youngest patrons.
- eShelf provides downloadable movies, books, music, comics, magazines and audio books. Initially funded by the Foundation in 2010 as a pilot project, downloadable services are now very popular. Over 50,000 eBooks have been borrowed from Sanibel Public Library in the past decade.
- The new digital game table features iconic board games like Monopoly, Scrabble, Trivial Pursuit, Candy Land, Yahtzee, puzzles, and more.
- The Library recently added Launchpad learning tablets for children, provided in part by a gift from Hans and Leslie Fleischner.
- The Library’s Digital Archive preserves the unique history and culture of Sanibel. With the support of the Foundation’s Roni Jo Freer Fund, the Library launched online public access to 4,000+ archival photos, maps, recordings, and other material.
- Support from the Foundation helps increase the SPL’s “Library of Things” where patrons can borrow items like Cooking and Birdwatching Kits, GoPro video cameras, LEGO Architecture kits, video games, and mobile WiFi hotspots.
- The meeScan self-check out system was another successful pilot program supported by the Sanibel Public Library Foundation.
In 2017, the Foundation’s $250,000 grant for Your Library Reimagined supported the renovation and in particular—technology infrastructure upgrades including meeting rooms, digitization, study rooms, WiFi, gaming, digital signage, and public catalog search. The Foundation also helped support expanding the reading porch, increasing youth collections, and funding the new Think Tank.
Through the summer Reading for Others! program, young patrons read to “earn” books for Golisano Children’s Hospital of Southwest Florida. Since 2011, more than 9,000 books have been placed in the hands of young patients at the hospital. With major funding provided by the Foundation for more than a decade, readers have enjoyed Author Series evenings with speakers like Scott Turow, David Baldacci, Margaret Atwood, Sue Monk Kidd, Jodi Picoult, Lee Child, Dennis Lehane, Amor Towles, and Scott Turow.
Lunch with Author 2022
Presenting Sponsor
Uhler & Vertich Financial Planners
Gold Sponsors
Bank of the Islands
Brenda and David Bass
Dolores Clarke
Jan Devitt
Barbara and Tom Dunham
Jan Egeland
Leslie Fleischner
Sherry Gentry
Gwenda Hiett-Clements
Linda Kramer
Jeannie Olinger
Patricia Schwarz
Sanibel Inn
Use your Library card to borrow Martha Hall Kelly’s books in print or download her eBooks/audiobooks using the Libby app from OverDrive. Sanibel Public Library cards are available at no extra cost to all residents of Sanibel and Lee County, Florida. For more information about the Foundation or to make a donation, call the Library at (239) 472-2483.
For media inquiries about Sanibel Public Library – contact Maureen Tesoro. mtesoro@sanlib.org (239) 472-2483.
