The JTEL is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit public charity. There are many ways to support the Ester Library. You can donate to the endowment fund online or write a check for a specific funds, such as the current operating fund, the fund to build a new library, the Ruth Jasper Children’s Room fund, and more. See a full list here (coming soon).
Donations to the JTEL are tax-deductible as allowed by law under IRS Code Section 170. Your donation to the library will give back to the community many times over.
Our EIN# is 27-1297959 and our Alaska State Entity # is 126504.
We will need plenty of help building the new library. This means that we’ll need construction labor, equipment, and supplies. We’ll need help writing grant proposals. We’ll need help with the design and the landscaping. We’ll need materials! Everything required to build a building, from screws to wiring to concrete, we will need. Contact the librarians for more information if you think you’d like to help out with the actual nuts-and-bolts construction or organizing. We have two committees dedicated to our building effort: the Capital Campaign Committee and the Construction Committee. Any library member can serve on these committees, and we welcome your participation.
Help maintain the current one
This is your library, and its usefulness depends on you. If you wish to volunteer to help at the library, there is plenty to do. Regular volunteer work includes sorting through book donations, cataloging new items, shelving books and other library materials, taking duplicates and rejected donations down to the Ester Post Office Book Exchange or Gulliver’s, and general tidying of the library or office as needed.
Help support the future library!
Building a new library is a very important part of providing services to the Ester area, but maintaining that building and providing for the JTEL’s long-term financial stability is equally as important. In October 2011 the board established the John Trigg Ester Library Fund, an endowment with the Alaska Community Foundation.
Help sponsor the office
After 11 years of operation, the library reached the stage where it needed an office. The office space is used to host board and committee meetings; appointments and meetings with architects, contractors, and builders during the construction of the new library; provide a sales outlet for shirts between fundraisers; store and maintain the records of the library and its board; catalog the collections and do other work; and provide a space for the membership to meet with the board informally or to help with the work of the library. However, office rental is not cheap, so the board is putting out a call for office sponsors: please contact our treasurer, Nancy Burnham, if you are willing to pay a regular sum to the library each month for office space. Our goal is $300 per month.
Buy a T-Shirt
Our first batch of t-shirts use the black & white line drawing, above, on lots of different colored t-shirts, long and short sleeved, and in men’s and women’s styles. Shortsleeved shirts are $15, longsleeved $20. The second batch are all longsleeved, and feature the logo as a small upper right chest patch. We also have t-shirts from the Readers on the Run races. These shirts come in a variety of colors. The shirts are available at the JTEL office or from the librarians. To order a shirt, contact the librarians at library[at]esterrepublic.com.
Buy a Name Plate
Another way to help fund the library is to buy a name plate that will be affixed to a bookshelf, thereby dedicating that shelf to the person of your choice. Plates are $50. Please let us know if you want it associated with a particular author or section, and we will try to attach it nearby. Please make checks payable to the John Trigg Ester Library.
Cold Hard Cash
Any time you’d like to make a straight cash donation, just send us a check made to John Trigg Ester Library, PO Box 468, Ester AK 99725. We deposit donations to our checking and savings accounts, to be used for rent, supplies, and for our building expenses. (The land is paid off!) Construction site preparation begins soon, so whatever you can send will be appreciated!
Office Supplies
We can always use office supplies. Materials needed for the library include blank library cards, card pockets (preferably with sticky backing), bookends, Avery 5160 inkjet printer labels, pens, bookends, envelopes, and glue sticks. We can also use sundry office supplies such as 8.5″ x 11″ 20# white xerox/printer paper, tape, a stapler, the odd light bulb (LED or florescent bulbs, please), etc.
Donating book credit
One way to donate to the library is to provide us with funds so that we can buy books of the librarians’ choosing. Gulliver’s Books will take your used books and apply the credit to the Ester library’s used book credit account, if you ask them to when you bring in your old books. That way we can purchase books for series missing volumes, or books requested by the membership.
Book Donations
Right now, we just don’t have room to take any more books. So please, if you have books you think would be good for the library, hang on to them for a little while longer, until we have our new building and more shelves to put them all on! Thank you!