The Saul O Sidore Memorial Foundation, a private non-profit charitable trust located in Bedford, N.H. announces the award of two grants to non-profit organizations in New Hampshire and six grants to libraries nominated by the N.H. State Library for participation in the Kids, Books and the Arts summer reading program. The semi-annual grants are part of a long-term commitment to providing funding for libraries, in towns with fixed resources, for limited projects that help to improve the libraries' service to their constituency. Priority is given toward programs that promote and enhance reading.

The grants were awarded to the Children's Literacy Foundation of Hanover and the Hunter School of Rumney. The grant to the Children's Literacy Foundation, in the amount of $4,000, will help support the Foundation's primary program, encouraging reading and providing books where needed for children in New Hampshire and Vermont. The grant to the Hunter School, in the amount of $2,608.95, is being used to provide specific lists of books for the use of the children at the school. In addition, six grants, totaling $1,500, were awarded to the town libraries of Berlin, Franconia, Jefferson, Lancaster, Lisbon, and Tuftonboro, which are participating in the N.H. State Library's Kids, Books and the Arts summer reading program.

The grants are named in memory of Rebecca Lee Spitz, a native of Manchester and a trustee of the Foundation who died of cancer at the age of 47. She had earned a Masters degree in Library Science, and had worked for several years as a multi-lingual librarian for the city of Haifa, Israel. In addition to being a volunteer at the Hollis Social Library, she also served for a number of years as Treasurer of the Hollis School District.

The first grant in this program was awarded in December, 1995 to the Hollis Social Library. Additional grants since then have gone to 31 municipal libraries and, with the above which were made in the absence of applications from public libraries, two charitable organizations, for a cumulative total of over $55,000.

Further grants in this program will be considered at the next semi-annual meeting of the Foundation, which will take place in November, 2001. For information about the guidelines and the form of application, municipal libraries in New Hampshire need to make written inquiries to: Ralph Sidore, Treasurer, Saul O Sidore Memorial Foundation, 24 Gage Road, Bedford, N.H. 03110.