Mercer Island Library seeks Volunteers for 'Literacy Garden'

Mercer Island's librarians love to foster literacy, but they're seeking the public's help in an ambitious, community-wide effort to build a Literacy Garden for children at the . 

The King County Library System (KCLS) is looking for volunteers to get behind the idea of integrating local natural space where children can explore nature via outdoor reading areas, as well as guided walks that encourage them to read and learn about their environment. And they want the community to design it.

KCLS is seeking a grant from Tully’s Coffee and the Pomegranate Center to work together on building new public gathering places, and decided Mercer Island would be an ideal spot.

"I think it would suit the Mercer Island community very well," Managing librarian Amy Eggler said.  "We also are hoping to incorporate an area in the garden where we can offer story times and programs to complement the garden and enhance children’s love of the outdoors, learning and literacy."

The Pomegranate Center is an Issaquah-based non-profit organization focused on developing community gathering places that are created using community-generated designs. 

In order to secure the grant, KCLS is seeking volunteers by March 31. There are two types of volunteers that we are looking for, according to a press release:

1)      Community Members – we will need between 30 and 50 of these. The commitment is to participate in community meetings, design workshops and construction (there will be 2-3 two hour meetings) and to volunteer to help with the construction of the garden which should take 3-5 days.

2)      Public Space Rangers – These are professionals from the design, construction and fabrication fields who will donate relevant skills and expertise to the project design and construction. We will need 3-5 of these volunteers. The commitment will be about 4 hours of training, participation in design workshops, plan development and construction plans and participation in the garden construction. We specifically will need people with experience in architecture, landscape architecture, and master gardeners. 

To volunteer, call or email either Amy Eggler or Christine Anderson at the Mercer Island Library 206-236-3537mercerislandlibrary@kcls.org  by March 31 if you are interested in volunteering.  If the  grant proposal is accepted the project will begin in May and conclude by Dec. 31, 2011.