Our Story.

The Scituate Library Foundation (SLF) was founded in 2000 with the mission of providing a long-term financial strategy to ensure continued quality library services to our community. SLF’s first big fundraiser was a black-tie gala with guest speaker Billy Bulger, who was the recipient of that year’s Paddle Your Own Canoe Award. Galas of this kind became a tradition of the SLF and continued for many years to come, as did the Paddle Your Own Canoe Award which was given in honor of a group of Scituate women who started the first lending library in town, which would eventually become the Scituate Public Library.

Scituate Library Foundation’s initial goal was “5 in 5” - $500,000 in 5 years. When it became clear that the Library needed more extensive repairs, SLF quickly changed its mission to that of a capital campaign. In addition to a donation made by Yvonne Twomey, the resulting endowment from the “5 in 5” goal was the seed that grew the Building for the Future Capital Campaign. This campaign became a concentrated effort to both get out the vote and to raise matching funds for the state MLBC program that allowed us build to the new Scituate Town Library, opened in June of 2017.

The Scituate Library Foundation would not exist or be where it is today without the vision of Dick Sherell, Library Trustee; Kathy Meeker, Former Library Director; and founders Skip DeBrusk, Tom Clark, Art Dunphy, J Paul Finnegan, Adria Gallagher and past presidents John Koulopoulos and Les Ball.