Meri Maben, Board Chair of the San José Public Library Foundation (SJPLF), commits herself to servicing the community surrounding her home in San José. But before San José, Meri’s first home was Greece. 

Meri lived in Greece for 11 years before moving to the United States. “Greek was my first language, and I came here speaking with a little bit of an accent,” she said. “I was like a fish out of water.” 

“I learned how to relate to people who are not the norm,” she said. Since settling in the United States, Meri has continued to find opportunities to serve her community, especially those who feel like outsiders.  

“I’ve always been involved in some organization that is serving the community,” she admitted. “I think because I see a need for people of privilege to give back.”

Meri has been a Women’s Commissioner for Santa Clara County, helped children with visual, dental, hearing, and emotional issues as the Chair of the Healthier Kids Foundation. Now, she brings that wealth of experience to her role as Board Chair.

Meri discovered the board through a friend and initially didn’t believe she could contribute much to the library. “I’ll do this as a courtesy to her. Books and libraries weren’t something I thought I would be able to contribute to,” she said. However, her mind quickly changed. “When I got there and opened up the brochure, I saw all the programming and saw the collaboration between the library, the Foundation and the commitment of our city leaders, and the depth that the Foundation serves.”

Meri’s value in service to others largely influences her position as Chair. “It’s really important to see your whole community and not people who are just invisible to you in your normal life,” she said. “I feel an obligation to help them, and I’m also passionate of the fact that the system put people there. So, how can we help people navigate the system so that they get all the advantages that they deserve?”

Additionally, nonprofits must step in to guide people through the system when the government no longer can support them. “Nonprofits serve a real need where the government can’t continue to fund,” Meri said. “They bring the community together. We do the social service work that government entities are overburdened with, and we can assist there. I think it gives people a sense of place and identity in their city and community.”

Prior to joining the San Jose Public Library Foundation, Donoghue Clarke had never been on a nonprofit board nor had interest in fundraising. Now, as a current board member and chair of the fundraising committee, he couldn’t be more involved in driving forward the Library’s mission.

Donoghue grew up in Jamaica, and as a young boy, he loved to read: “Like most young people, I first developed love of reading through comic books. My mom bought me my first Superman comic at six years old, which I still have.” As he grew older, he moved onto reading the Hardy Boys. “I had access to those books through the local library and a mobile library that would come to our town.”

The library provided Donoghue opportunities to read as a child, in turn developing his critical thinking and analytical skills. “Reading was instrumental to my development,” he said. Even in college, when Donoghue moved to the United States of America and attended San Jose State University, he still utilized the Martin Luther King Jr. Library to borrow audiobooks.

Donoghue admitted: “I didn’t have any experience in fundraising. But at my firm, we’re taught to accept challenges. The wonderful thing is when you give your time to something, you will sometimes be asked to do things outside of your comfort zone,” he said. “My experience in life has taught me more often than not, say yes.”

Donoghue’s occupation as Managing Principal provided him with many skills that qualified him for the board. “I didn’t have experience with attaining money for nonprofit organizations, but I had good administrative skill sets because I run our San Jose office, and I had good judgement and years of experience,” he said.

Moreover, Donoghue recognized the essential role of nonprofit organizations in society. “Industries and the government cannot provide all the social goods that society needs,” he said. “Nonprofits identify those needs and fulfills them, providing individuals a means to give back and participate in society as well.”

Newest San Jose Public Library Foundation (SJPLF) board member Jenn Protas has always dedicated free time in her busy schedule volunteering despite being a full time lawyer.

For the past 18 years, she has resided in the Bay Area working as a shareholder at Hoge Fenton. As she was searching for a new volunteer position, the Foundation was in the back of her mind.

 “Getting involved with the Foundation was always on my radar,” Jenn said. It wasn’t until a colleague at Hoge Fenton emailed gauging interest for prospective board members that she took initiative to join the board in the spring of 2025. 

However, recently Jenn wasn’t too familiar with libraries. “I have not been active in libraries for a good chunk of my adult life,” she said. “As a kid, I went to the library a lot, but as an adult I had the privilege to buy the books.” 

Once, a friend pointed out the privilege of affording brand new books and directed Jenn to the many resources and opportunities libraries could provide for free. Inspired, Jenn returned to the library looking at a new opportunity: joining the Foundation.

Connecting Students to Opportunities

The San José Public Library (Library) and San José Public Library Foundation (SJPLF) believe in a future where San José boasts a high rate of postsecondary success for all students. San Jose Aspires is an innovative partnership created between the Library, former Mayor Sam Liccardo, and SJPLF to reduce financial and informational barriers that students in underserved neighborhoods face when making decisions about college and career choices. Through SJ Aspires, we connect students to opportunities to pursue meaningful postsecondary education and offer scholarship dollars for actions aligned with academic success.

At its core, SJ Aspires aims to change students’ attitudes and behaviors related to graduating high school, succeeding in post-secondary education, and the Silicon Valley workforce. Students enrolled in a participating school who meet the program criteria (first-generation college students and English language learners) are automatically eligible to participate in the program. SJ Aspires student have the opportunity to earn up to $5,000 in scholarships to support their post-secondary education goals and help defray the financial barriers to college. Since SJ Aspires’ inception in 2018, the program has, to date, served 2,129 high school students who have claimed 7,983 scholarship awards, and earned $661,925 scholar dollars.

Beyond the Pilot Phase

With such a successful pilot phase, the Library and SJPLF sought a qualified partner agency to assume long-term oversight and operations for SJ Aspires including program expansion and financial sustainability. The Library and SJPLF reviewed the qualifications of potential partners and determined that the Boys and Girls Clubs of Silicon Valley (BGCSV), is the ideal organization to continue advancing the impact of SJ Aspires.

The Library and SJPLF will work closely with BGCSV through this transition to ensure that the incredible work that has gone into building this program continues to grow and maximize the potential of students, regardless of their economic status or geographic location.

Every week, librarian Randall Studstill leads storytime activities in the community room of the San José Public Library’s (SJPL) West Valley Branch. A gaggle of toddlers appear once the doors open, and they crowd around Randall with questions left and right. They’re curious, spirited, and excited to learn. 

As parents settle in their seats and enjoy a period of rest, the sessions begin with follow-along songs and chants. However, before storytime begins, it’s routine for Randall to flip through and advocate for a slideshow of summer programs. Most notably, Summer Learning.

This year, grand prizes for each age category include a toy projector (ages 0-5), a portable soccer equipment set (5-10), a space projector and rocket lamp (10-12), a record player (12-18) and a travel coffee and tea kettle (18+). If you’re interested, the summer’s not over yet, and neither is Summer Learning!

A committee meets regularly to decide the prizes of Summer Learning. “They usually have a good time with it,” Wilson said. The only restrictions for the prizes are they must be education related and they have a price point of $50-$75 per prize. Every summer, each age category has five winners. Now that’s a lot of prizes!

But how does the San José Public Library afford that many prizes?

Reading is a calm activity, but the thought of winning prizes sparks excitement and motivation among younger crowds. Randall explained, “The prizes motivate the kids to do [the program]. As they do it, they learn along the way, ‘oh yeah, this is enjoyable.’”

He added that “a lot of the success of Summer Learning has a lot to do with parental involvement. I tell the parents that storytime is for all ages, so hopefully you can sign up and read together as a family.”

Libraries bring people together in families, neighborhoods, and cities. Consequently, Paul encourages anyone and everyone to participate in Summer Learning. “The library is a hub of the community, a gathering place, as well as a place to learn, have fun, and stay engaged with the surrounding community for all ages,” he said. “I would hope that the program would just boost awareness and appeal of the library as a community meeting place, and encourage people to learn and stay engaged with the city and the neighborhood that the library is part of.”

The TeenHQ at the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Library was bustling with eagerness on the afternoon of July 26, 2025. Handmade products, from crocheted chickens to fidget toys, were lined neatly on multiple different stands, and they were selling out fast. Most notably, the sellers behind these stands weren’t entrepreneurs with full-time jobs. They were ARTrepeneurs, also known as teenagers on summer break.

Jessica Lundin, the program leader, explained: “ARTrepeneurs started out as a a grant that we got through the California State Library to try and get teens interested in starting small businesses or doing arts as a career path.”

Through the help of the San José Public Library Foundation, the library additionally received support to collaborate with WeThrive, a program providing seed funding and an entrepreneurship curriculum to teach youth how to start their own business.

Most recently, the ARTrepeneur Teen Pop-up Market held at the King Library was a booming success. As a beginner opportunity for teens to promote and sell their products, the market proved to be a valuable experience for many. 

“It’s been great to start a business and start making money that I can save and spend,” a participant of the program said. “I’ve been used to selling through my mom’s Facebook account, and this is the only in-person event I get to do. The program definitely teaches you how to sell and approach customers, and also how to price your products.”

Programs like Teen ARTrepeneurs inspire youth to fulfil their wildest dreams by providing them with the resources and the path to do so. Thanks to the initial funding of the Foundation, the opportunity to become an ARTrepeneur is available every summer. 

Laura is a retired physical science and math tutor. Yet week after week, in her free time, she continues tutoring at the San José Public Library. Not physics, or math, or anything STEM related at all. She teaches English.

Laura volunteers as a tutor for Adult Literacy and ESL, a free program at the San José Public Library. Supported by the San José Public Library Foundation, the program educates adults with an array of skills needed to thrive in Silicon Valley, from reading and writing in English to critical thinking and life skills. In particular, Laura focuses on conversational skills.

Laura is not new to volunteer work. “[Volunteering] almost all of my life is something that my family did because they didn’t have money to do anything else to help out,” she explained. “I had been volunteering previous years in other organizations including the school from which I retired. I would work with ESL students or non-native adults who had never learned to read and were working on it.”

She explained that becoming an English tutor for the library was simple: “The training program for both the [Adult] Literacy and the ESL program through the library is excellent.” Laura said, “They’ll teach you the best practices. They provide you with all the materials that they think you need, and any materials that you don’t have. They will also try to accommodate your schedule.”

In her lessons with Brisa and Alma, Laura starts every session with conversation. She explained, “I usually meet with two or three individuals together. We’re learning to ask questions now, so they ask each other questions. Or if there’s been a major event in their lives, they want to talk about that and share.”

After an initial conversation, they turn to textbooks. “We have an interesting set of text materials to use which we skip around in to make more effective,” Laura said. 

At the end of each lesson, her students will often have unique requests. Most recently, Brisa got her Green Card to visit her mother in Tijuana, but was “frightened about coming back into the United States through immigration and [responding to] the questions they would ask.”

Laura said, “We spent three weeks working ahead of time with all of the ladies on what kind of questions could you expect from immigration.” 

As an ESL tutor, Laura must come up with many strategies to keep her students engaged while teaching practical vocabulary. “I think of teaching as having a gigantic bag of tricks,” she said while laughing. “You need a lot of different kinds of things to do, to work well with individual learning. I like pictures and real objects if we can. I like us to move around if we can.”

She added, “We tend to learn better if we’re learning something we like. I can teach you a speech from Abraham Lincoln, but do you really want to know that yet?”

As a recent first generation college graduate, Mariana was in the midst of searching for a job when she was introduced to the RC program. “It wasn’t until my dad had shared a job opportunity with me through the SJPL Foundation that I felt like things were finally moving for me,” she said. 

One after another, she completed her interview, then her training, then she began her work with the Resilience Corps (RC) at the Educational Park Library. 

As a Resilience Corps Associate (RCA), she supported kids from K-8 in afterschool education and extracurriculars, while also learning professional skills such as program development, leadership, and presentation.

The RC program additionally built a foundation for her to comfortably and confidently explore job opportunities to launch her career. “Becoming an RCA opened doors for me that I had no idea were even possible,” she said. “I was lucky enough to represent all the RCAs and speak with the mayor during a conference. I got to network with Apple and Apple educators to talk about their journeys into education, and I got to meet amazing people who have been nothing short of supportive.”

Her work in the library led her to ultimately return to school to get her Master’s in Library and Information Sciences. “I would have not been able to come to this decision without being able to see firsthand what it was like to give back to my community through the library,” she said. “I hope that the next cohort enjoys it as much as I did.”