Libraries are a cornerstone of democracy – where information is free and equally available to everyone. – Carla Hayden, Librarian of Congress

Since 2016, the Olseth Family Foundation has provided financial resources for a range of Hennepin County Library programs including:

• Homework Help, which utilizes hundreds of volunteers who provide 1-to-1 afterschool tutoring for K-12 students at 17 sites.
• Teen Tech Squad and Best Buy Teen Tech Center, a safe place where young people ages 13 to 19 find companionship, mentorship, and opportunities for learning and self-expression, while receiving access to cutting edge technology.
• The Community Engagement Initiative, which introduces, connects, and collaborates with Minneapolis’ most underrepresented groups, ensuring that every person within Hennepin County has the opportunity and resources to read, engage, graduate, work, and pursue lifelong learning.
• Let’s Read utilizes evidence-based Science of Reading skills to help hundreds of students develop key foundational reading skills needed to read at grade level and build a home library, while making sure that every child in Hennepin County has both a library card and familiarity with the library and staff. In so doing, the program is inspiring a lifelong passion for literature.

New Yorker article about “an ambitious experiment in Minneapolis is changing the way librarians work with their homeless patrons and challenging how we share public space.”
https://www.newyorker.com/news/us-journal/not-your-childhood-library

Documentary The Right to Read emphasizes literacy as civil rights issue:  https://www.therighttoreadfilm.org

The science of reading, an investigative podcast from American Public Media: https://features.apmreports.org/sold-a-story/