After a record-breaking number of applications from 47 WiLS member organizations, our staff and Board are delighted to share with you the amazing projects that have been selected to receive grants from the WiLS Ideas to Action Fund in 2023!
Clear Lake School District, Bringing Our History to Life
Using traveling display cases, the project will bring historical items to students and community members so they can learn about the past and help strengthen our future.
Hales Corners Library, W. Ben Hunt Prairie Learning Garden
The Learning Garden will offer a hands-on educational experience, inviting community members to engage in volunteer work or self-guided tours, fostering a deeper connection with prairie ecosystems as they explore and nurture native plants.
Hartland Public Library, Biking Along the Ice Age Trail with the Hartland Public Library
This project will add a bike repair station next to the Library building along the Ice Age Trail, purchase a foldable bike that can be checked out at the Library, and hold a bike safety event for kids to help promote both the Trail itself and the Library’s evolving mission in the 21st century, as a community center that supports everyone and all kinds of activities, which includes getting outside and taking part in an active lifestyle for better physical and mental health.
Lake Geneva Public Library, Leaves and Sheaves: Papermaking for Art and the Environment
The Lake Geneva Public Library will connect books, history, recycling, and plant foraging with a hand papermaking project that encourages sustainable thinking and innovative adaptations of traditional arts and crafts.
UW-Stevens Point, Poem in Your Pocket Day
This project shares the love of poetry in the Central Wisconsin region by distributing poems with colleagues, family, neighbors, and strangers to be read and shared at work, school, in local establishments, and even local government meetings, with the intention of spending one day – Poem in Your Pocket Day in April – to engage with each other through the beauty of poetry.
Western Technical College. Blooming with Books: Cultivating a Community of Readers of All Ages in the Learning Commons
Blooming with Books is a community- and literacy-building opportunity imagined by Western’s Learning Commons, which is an open-access college learning center and library that seeks to support all students in balancing parenting, academic, and work responsibilities.
Wisconsin Library Association, Great Lakes, Great Reads: A Community Read for Our Watershed
This basin-wide community read program will be piloted in Wisconsin with the goal of being a catalyst for other states and provinces in the Upper Midwest and Canada to engage and inspire passion and connection to the Great Lakes watershed through reading.
WJ Niederkorn Library, Libraries for Everyone: Supervised Visitations at Your Library
This project includes creating a visitation guide for caseworkers and families, creating activity bags for families during visitations, and offering possible solutions to common needs such as private meeting areas and food-friendly spaces.
For our members whose projects were not selected or who have new ideas percolating, look for the next application period is April 2024. Questions? Read more about the Ideas to Action Fund or contact us at information@wils.org.