This weekend President Trump signed an executive order eliminating the Institute of Museum and Library Services, the nation’s only federal agency that provides funds to America’s libraries. This concerns me deeply. One library can impact thousands of lives. The public library is a staple of American culture dating back over a century. These facilities provides not only knowledge, though they offer that in bounds, but also act as community centers and one of the few safe havens for all Americans regardless of financial status, age, race or religion. In a public library you will find seniors keeping social at sewing circles, young people learning coding and programming skills, children and their parents enjoying age-appropriate literacy enriching play, adults taking online courses they need to advance their careers and filling out job applications, students accessing databases to enrich research papers, voters learning where they can find their polls, and so much more. When Hurricanes Helene and Milton struck Florida last year it was the libraries that were set up as FEMA relief centers and it was library employees who put our daily tasks aside to do clean up, disaster relief, resource distribution and more for weeks in the aftermath. Every week members of the library travel across our county bringing library materials to the elderly who can’t leave their homes. 4 days a week the library offers free exercise classes to anyone who wishes to attend. One branch of the library offers cooking classes to teens, and another teaches financial literacy. We work with schools and churches. We distribute information about your campaigns when election season comes around. We help people file their taxes. The library does so much good and defunding it may be the most narrow sighted decision made by this administration, or any administration, to date.
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