Library effort will help provide for children

Morris Library at SIUC is once again assisting The Poshard Foundation in gathering holiday donations for children in local women's shelters.

The program, which works in concert with Pat Benton of radio station Magic 95.1 FM, allows donors to "adopt" children staying at the shelters and make financial donations in their names. Counselors then use the donations to buy gifts and essential items for the children.

This is the fourth year the library has teamed with the foundation, founded in 1999 by SIU President Glenn Poshard and his wife, Jo. 

During previous years, organizers kicked off the event by lighting a Christmas tree in the Hall of Presidents at the library. Ongoing construction and renovation at the library make that impossible, however. Instead, organizers erected a flat tree on the wall near the circulation desk at Morris Library.

The library staff will add a snowflake with the donor's name on it when they make a contribution. Donors can take the snowflake home as a keepsake after Wednesday, Dec. 20.

Donors can contribute to the effort by writing a tax-deductible check in any amount to the Poshard Foundation and dropping it off:

• Monday-Friday from 8 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. at the Morris Library administrative offices, Room 102, Northwest Annex.
• During normal business hours at the circulation desk in Morris Library. Donors also can mail a check to: Susan Tulis, library affairs, Northwest Annex A, Mail Code 6632, Southern Illinois University Carbondale, 850 Lincoln Drive, Carbondale, IL 62901.
  

Donors must submit checks by Friday, Dec. 8.

The library staff also is collecting donations in a box located at the circulation desk in Morris Library.

- Tim Crosby