The past year was full of opportunities and growth for the NLI! JWI now has 30 libraries open in shelters across the country; an expanded NLI advisory council; incredible new partnerships; and a number of initiatives helping us put books in the hands of thousands of at-risk children.

 New Libraries

• JWI opened libraries at My Sister’s Place in Washington, DC; Women’s Resource Center in Atlanta; and the Greentree Shelter in Bethesda, Maryland
• Began fundraising for new libraries to open in the Bronx and Indianapolis in 2009

New Books and Supplies

• Sent back-to-school and holiday shipments of books to all 30 libraries
• Shipped nearly 1,000 books from a book drive—by sorority partner Sigma Delta Tau—to nine shelters in need
• Provided teddy bears, courtesy of volunteers, for the library in the Brooklyn D.A.’s Office, to ease tension for children involved in the trial process
• Outfitted libraries in Austin, Bethesda, Princeton and San Francisco with computers

New Faces

• Expanded the advisory council to 15 remarkable individuals nationwide, with an array of perspectives on children, domestic violence, books and education
• Welcomed Eliza Feller, our first staff member dedicated full-time to the NLI

New Partnerships

• Launched the Publishing Partners program in December 2008, which solicits publishers to donate 5,000 books each year, for three years
• Revised the Ambassador Program to simplify the fundraising and book-collecting process for volunteers; also enhanced the program to better benefit the children in the shelters, through a partnership with First Book
• Introduced an innovative way for volunteers to sustain libraries by providing individual web pages to promote their fundraising efforts