UNIQUE FUND-A-NEED OPPORTUNITIES
Can’t make the cocktail party and fundraiser?
Please consider supporting one of our exciting 2023 community initiatives. Your donation directly benefits the Desert Foothills Library and the Foothills Community.
Close your eyes and remember your favorite library growing up: can you imagine your life without that library? What if you could make certain that four hundred children at Black Mountain Elementary School could, with your generous help, make Desert Foothills Library their library and an important part of their life? How many of those children’s lives would change forever as they discover a passion for reading and exploring the world…one Desert Foothills Library book at a time?
We have teamed with Matthew Owlsley, principal of local Black Mountain Elementary School, to create a “Library Card for All Students” initiative. When parents register their children for school in the fall, all children will have the opportunity to receive their own library card.
Show your support of early literacy initiatives by supporting this project this evening!
We call the Foothills home because we love everything this community offers. What if you could help the Library and the Cave Creek Museum create a Living Library oral history experience so that thousands of visitors and new residents could learn and share the inspiring history of your beloved community?
Oral history helps us understand how individuals and communities experienced the forces of history. In partnership with the Cave Creek Museum, this project will preserve the knowledge, memories, and experiences of local citizens.
We are currently digitizing cassette tape-recorded interviews conducted decades ago as well as interviewing other prominent residents this spring such as former Spur Cross Dude Ranch owner Audrey Beaubien Woodward and renowned architect Gerry Jones. We will upload the recordings to the state library’s oral history website, The Arizona Memory Project, which can be listened to at home or on dedicated kiosks at the Library and Museum.
In the fall of 2023, we will launch a series of programs to educate our residents on how to either conduct interviews with loved ones or create their own oral histories so their personal legacies can be captured for future generations. Staff will transform a study room into a pop-up recording studio for our patrons who need assistance recording their stories. At the Living Library kickoff event, we will host ariZoni award willing playwright Andrea Markowitz’s original play that weaves the themes that run through the historic interviews and will highlight some of the real local characters who helped to shape Carefree and Cave Creek into what they are today.
Have you discovered the joy of cooking? What if you could bring that joy to hundreds of others in our community? With your support, we can! The culinary arts have benefits beyond physical health; recent studies have revealed that a little creativity and creation in the kitchen make people happier. It’s no surprise, then, that our culinary programs have been so successful that we’ve outgrown our demonstration kitchen space. This summer and fall, we have offered sold-out classes on creating vinaigrettes, sauces, salsa, hummus, and even a gin cocktail.
With your donation, we can elevate our culinary program offerings by investing in a second demonstration mirror, a commercial dishwasher, and portable cooktops so our burgeoning chefs can cook alongside our instructors.
How different would your life be if you grew up without reading and re-reading your favorite books at home? With your generous gift, you can make sure over 500 children from local families in need can begin to build their own library of memories and inspiration. And you make an unimaginable impact and forge a legacy in the lives of generations of our young neighbors. It’s proven that a home library increases children’s academic success, vocabulary development, attention, and job attainment.
Last year we received an Arizona State Library Grant for five-hundred youth books. We partnered with the Foothills Food Bank to distribute these books to families in need to help support home libraries. When a family visits the Food Bank to pick up their boxes, they were given a book. As well, through the Snack Pack Program, the Food Bank in partnership with local schools provided backpacks full of nutritious snacks for long weekends and holidays. Each student who receives a Snack Pack will also receive a book. Each book we distribute has a sticker inside the front cover encouraging families to visit the library to get a free card.
The families and children were so excited to receive a free book that we committed to continuing this program next year.
Your support ensures we can continue to nourish the body and minds of our community’s students in need.
Our beloved region has an incredibly rich history which all Arizonans should be proud to share…if they just realized how vast our history is. Via previous donations, the library owns an incredibly rich collection of historic treasures that we’d love to share with all our patrons.
By donating XXX tonight, you will have your own named collection and room at the library.
Just imagine one place where visitors and citizens alike can see, read, and hear about all the most important history-making events and people who have made Arizona what it’s become in the 21st century. Here are just some of the topics our items encompass:
- Arizona’s sanctuaries, retreats, and sacred places
- Collecting Hopi Kachinas
- Remarkable Arizona women
- The history, land, and people of the desert Southwest
- Notable Arizona politicians
- The history of mining in Arizona
- Military forts and campaigns of the Southwest
- Arizona’s “Little Hollywood”
- Desert wildflowers and native Arizona plants
- Birds, lizards, wild animals, cacti, and grasses of the Southwest
- Desert architecture
- Navajo textiles
- Archeology of Arizona
- Poems of the Southwest
- Notable Southwest figures like Wyatt Earp and Kit Carson
Additional donations to this project will allow us to curate programming and workshops that will bring to life the unique collection of Arizona and the Southwest for all to see, feel and embrace.
It shouldn’t come as a surprise that there is so much writing talent in our great state. This fall we hosted our inaugural AZ Author Series with visits from eight authors. Library members enjoyed hearing about experiences as varied as a vivid journey through the Sonoran Desert in search of lost treasures and how one woman’s discovery of her father’s World War II letters enabled her to learn about his life before he passed away when she was just six years old.
This winter we are excited to present ten writers whose work spans from thrillers, supernatural mysteries, travel, and war to Bob Boze Bell’s most outrageous and timely book on the most notorious hellraisers of the West.
Reading local authors helps you learn new things about the place we call home. These authors have lived experiences in their communities and deeply understand the culture, challenges, joys, and stories that make them unique. This extra insight means that authors can represent their communities with a healthy mix of respect and criticism, portraying characters with the complexity they deserve.
Help us continue to offer our local authors the opportunity to share their works with our patrons and our members the chance to meet writers and see Arizona through a new lens.
Library Hours
Closed Saturday, February 18, 2023 in preparation for our Elegant Cocktail Party (ticket available here)
Closed Monday, February 20, 2023
Monday
Wednesday
Friday
9:00 am – 5:00 pm
Tuesday
Thursday
9:00 am – 6:00 pm
Saturday
10:00 am – 4:00 pm
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