On April 3, 2024, Library Giving Day, we launched our Lewis & Clark Library Bookmobile Campaign and raised more than $5,000. On May 1-2, during the Greater Helena Gives 24-hour fundraising event, we raised almost $4,000!
A NEW BOOKMOBILE FOR LEWIS & CLARK LIBRARY
Twelve years ago, Lewis & Clark Library introduced its first Bookmobile to begin serving the widespread and rural communities of Lewis and Clark County. To ensure bookmobile services continue long into the future, it is time to plan for a new Bookmobile to replace our current one.
To raise the needed funds, the Lewis & Clark Library Foundation has launched a two-year Lewis & Clark Library Bookmobile Campaign (2024-2025).
In 2012, the Lewis & Clark Library Foundation, with the support of hundreds of generous donors, helped the Library purchase its first, and only, Bookmobile. Looking ahead to ensure Bookmobile services continue uninterrupted, Lewis & Clark Library will replace this Bookmobile with a new, more energy efficient model. And the Foundation is again helping to raise the needed funds.
The current Bookmobile vehicle has served Lewis and Clark County well over the past decade. It will take about two years before the new Bookmobile joins the mobile library fleet, so we are planning ahead to ensure full funding is in place to make this happen.
With 90,000+ miles on the odometer of the current Bookmobile, the well-maintained vehicle has many more miles to go and will continue to travel its countywide route until it is sold to another library. The new Bookmobile will be purchased with funds from this sale, the Library’s depreciation reserve fund, and from the Library Foundation through the generosity of our donors. It is expected that the new Bookmobile will arrive and begin traveling our county roads in 2026.
The Lewis & Clark Library Foundation has committed $250,000 toward the estimated cost of $600,000 for a new Bookmobile vehicle.
Most of this funding is already covered, thanks to the Sarah McCabe Power Trust and a significant bequest from the Robert “Bob” M. Morgan estate.
To complete this fundraising effort, we are asking the Lewis and Clark County community to help us raise the rest of the needed funds: $28,000 by the end of FY2025 (June 30, 2025).
Visit the Library's Bookmobile webpage for more information.
Thanks to the generosity of dozens of donors, we raised almost $4,000 during this year's Greater Helena Gives fundraiser to support the New Bookmobile Campaign.
Your gift will help Lewis & Clark Library keep its popular and essential Bookmobile Service rolling along!
THANK YOU!
DONATE HERE or download the pledge and donation form.
Our hardworking, but aging, Bookmobile will be replaced before it breaks down and leaves thousands of county patrons without the library services they treasure and depend on.
