Humanitarian Aid Drive for Ukraine

During a successful two-week humanitarian drive for Ukraine co-sponsored by UCARE, Inc., hundreds of essential items were collected. The Arlington Heights community donated baby food, first aid kits, clothes, shoes and over-the-counter medicine to this organization serving Ukranian families.

Ukraine TrustChain co-sponsored a letter writing service project at the library that brought messages of hope and support from the library’s young customers to Ukrainian children evacuated from active war zones. Letter writing stations for kids, tweens and teens were stationed in the library.

The library also partnered with Mission:MathMinds to host a book drive for Ukrainian children in refugee sites and underserved communities throughout Chicago. In two weeks, approximately 1,000 books were collected and shipped to various partners in Ukraine and other communities.

Successful First Lit Stroll

The library’s first Lit Stroll took place in downtown Arlington Heights, bringing readers together to meet and mingle with Illinois authors Jon Seidel, Mia P. Manansala, Lisa Barr and Elizabeth Berg. The library partnered with four Arlington Heights venues, Peggy Kinnane’s, La Tasca Tapas, Hey Nonny and Arlington Ale House, to host an author at each site. One hundred and sixteen people came out to hear about the authors’ novels and writing process and mingle with other literary lovers as they strolled from location to location.

Summer Volunteer Squads

Throughout the summer, 125 Arlington Heights teens grades 7-12 gave back through the library’s Summer Volunteer Squads (SVS) program. In total, teen volunteers clocked around 989 service hours in June and July, presented 25 library programs, and completed other projects to support the library and our community. The 2022 SVS lineup included the Maker Squad, a new Squad that focused on ways to introduce teens to the Makerplace by creating project guides throughout the summer and leading interactive tours. Another new Squad was the Cemetery Sleuths who used library genealogy resources to discover more about notable figures buried at Wheeling Township Arlington Heights Cemetery. Returning in 2022 for the first time since 2019, the Reading Table Team Squad volunteers managed the Summer Reading Desk in Kids’ World each day throughout the week. These teen volunteers helped register the 2,918 youth who signed up for Summer Reading through the end of July and were a key component to the success of the program.