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San Rafael libraries roll out unified Summer 2026 program and state grant to fund school-site outreach
Summary
The San Rafael libraries unveiled a unified summer reading program running June 13—Aug. 8 with printed bingo cards for children, teens and adults and community-art tote prizes. Staff also said a $6,000 California State Library grant will fund pop-up outreach at school lunch sites and two paid teen interns.
The San Rafael Board of Library Trustees heard details on the system's Summer 2026 offerings and a related state grant at its May 12 meeting.
Presenter Sean Boyd said the library is standardizing summer activities across branches with three bingo cards targeted to children (ages 0—2), teens (middle and high school) and adults. "So this summer, we are standardizing, unifying our summer," Boyd said, adding that the cards will be double-sided in English and Spanish and distributed to schools so students can participate.
The library will print roughly 3,626 elementary-school cards for distribution through San Rafael Unified schools; middle- and high-school students will receive PDF versions via their school librarians. Prizes include stickers for row completions and a raffle for tote bags printed with winning designs from a recent community art contest. "We're turning our community's art into tote bags," Boyd said; stickers and tote bags are intended as low-cost, locally meaningful incentives instead of generic toys.
Board members also heard that the library won a $6,000 "Lunch at the Library" grant from the California State Library to support outreach at school meal sites. A staff member summarized the plan: the library will send teams to identified meal sites once during lunch to hand out books, leave some books for children to keep, and conduct light outreach and data collection. "We were awarded $6,000 for the summer program in December," the staff member said. "Based on funding and plans, we are bringing on two paid teen interns to help with outreach, planning and tracking statistics."
The grant funds will cover books, outreach and stipends for two teen interns who will work part time through the summer to run pop-up events, assist with data entry and support in-branch prep. Staff said the interns are funded through the grant and the program will emphasize outreach to students who qualify for free or reduced-price meals; staff noted that several sites on the schedule have high percentages of eligible students.
Board members asked how the pop-ups will operate. Staff replied that each meal site will be visited once during lunch because the districts condensed summer sessions, and that the library will leave books at sites for children to keep when necessary. "We're only there one day, so we'll leave books there that anyone can take," the presenter said. Staff also said the library will track participant ages and categories for evaluation, though the depth of data collected will be limited to preserve privacy.
The board asked about teen participation and program logistics. Staff said the library will recruit two paid teen interns through a California State Library-supported program; they will visit two sites per week between them and help with both on-site engagement and in-branch tasks. The summer kickoff is scheduled for Saturday, June 13.
The board did not take any formal action beyond receiving the presentations. Trustees said they welcome a post-summer report; staff indicated they will compile participation data and share results with the board.
The meeting then moved to staff liaison and capital-project reports.
