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The Yosemite Association recently conducted a highly successful membership drive that allowed it to make a donation of $100 to the El Portal Library. In October and November of last year, YA pledged to donate $5 for every local new membership or renewal received. Twenty El Portal community members responded by joining, renewing or purchasing gift memberships.
The El Portal Library serves community residents as well as the El Portal Elementary School and the Yosemite Park High School. It is one of the few combined public and school libraries in California. Branch Head Roxann Mulvey envisions the library serving as an arts and cultural center for El Portal, as well as promoting literacy. In addition to offering storytime for preschoolers, the library's community arts event last fall was very well received. The library will next present the photography of Brian Grogan on February 3, 2002.
Partnering with the library made perfect sense to the association, according to Laurel Rematore, YA's membership director. "El Portal has been the home of the YA office for over 15 years, and we wanted to give something back to our community," she said. "We are excited about opportunities to promote literacy as well as stewardship of this wonderful national park that we support. These newest YA members join over 8,000 others who are equally committed to our mission."
Founded in 1923, the Yosemite Association is a nonprofit National Park Cooperating Association that uses resources from its annual membership dues and from merchandise sales in park visitor centers to benefit education, research, interpretation and museum programs in Yosemite National Park. Since 1990, YA has donated over $3.25 million to the NPS and supports a wide variety of park programs including the Art Activity Center, Ostrander Ski Hut, the Wilderness Education Center, and Bear Awareness. YA also promotes park stewardship by publishing educational books about Yosemite and providing crews of member volunteers who staff Happy Isles Nature Center, the Yosemite Valley Museum Gallery, Parsons Lodge in Tuolumne Meadows, and work on much needed resource restoration projects throughout the park.
Learn more by
exploring the YA website or by calling the El Portal office, located in the
historic Bagby railroad station building, at 209-379-2646.
January 26, 2002
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