Wellington's Herrick Memorial Libary received a grant from The Community Foundation totaling $5,511 in July of 2010 that brought back two literacy programs that had been cut due to an elimination in state funding.

The early literacy program fulfilled, in part, the “Every Child Ready to Read” mandated by Governor Strickland in 2007. The “baby bag” provides materials for parents of infants and small toddlers about the importance of reading to an infant and how to engage them in books while reading to them. The bag contains literacy brochures purchased from the American Library Association, a paperback book “Read to your Bunny” by Rosemary Wells, a ‘READ’ to my baby magnetic photo frame and book marks. The library also provides an information brochure about our “Baby Steps” story times and schedules. These story times helps to reinforce methods of interacting with an infant while reading to them. Library staff purchased enough materials to assemble 100 baby bags thinking that this amount would last the library for one-and-a-half to two years. Little did they know that their community would be hit with a mini baby boom this past winter and that the baby bag would be in demand. This program has been a huge success and as a result, the library’s “Baby Steps” program has maximized its enrollment and may need to become two sessions.

The continuing literacy program evolved from the library’s once-a-month visit to the Wellington Latchkey program. In the old once-a-month latchkey visit, the library provided a storybook reading and a craft for the children to complete. The children didn’t visit the public library or check out materials. It was a very static program. With funds provided by the 2010 grant, the library was able to hire a 10-hour per week worker who provided actual library service to the students. The library director met with the parents of the Latchkey students at the Wellington Latchkey Open House to provide them with informtion about the added value of the library’s program and to get the students signed up with public library cards. The library was very fortunate in the hiring of Claire Hatton, a Lorain County Communty College student, to be the Latchkey Coordinator. Claire was trained to use the library’s computerized circulation system and in learning different abilities of young readers. She was provided time to learn the Children’s Department book collection and to select a wide variety of books to take to the Latchkey program. Claire would take a collection of up to 60 books, both fiction and nonfiction, for the children to select from and check out each week. She always read to them at least one book as a way to reinforce the art of reading. Once a month, Claire would create a craft project for the students to do after they heard the day’s story and checked out their books. The supplies for the crafts projects were funded by the Friends of the Herrick Memorial Library. This group funds the Herrick Memorial Library’s programs for all ages. Claire had a steady base of 10-12 students who checked out books each week. Some of these students and their families started occasionaly to use the library to meet their entertainment needs. At the end of the school year, the library held a celebration with them by providing fruit-flavored popcicles to all of the latchkey students and used this time to promote the library’s summer reading program in hopes that they would see them throughout the summer.