CHESTERMERE – With leftover funding from his Alberta PC Leadership campaign, minister of energy and local PC candidate Ted Morton was able to donate $5,000 to the Chestermere Public Library.
Morton presented the cheque to library director Gemma Noon and library board chair Noelle Trung on Friday, March 23.
Morton took a tour of the library last month and decided that some of the funding, which all came from donors, would be put to good use by the local library.
“The only rule with the surplus money is that you can’t keep it, so we’re giving to a couple different charities,” he said. “I think a library is one of the cornerstones of any community, and during my visit last month I was impressed by how busy and vital this one is.”
Morton specified that he would like some of the funding to go towards improving the CPL’s dual language collection. He said that because he and his wife have both spent time travelling and teaching, they realized how important language skills are for success in life.
“During my last visit here, I was told that the dual language collection was one of the busiest and most used parts of the library, so hopefully this donation can help improve it,” he said.
Library director Gemma Noon said that receiving the funding is always appreciated, as the CPL needs all the help it can get in order to continue improving the collection.
“The bulk of this donation will go toward collections development, with a portion going to dual language collection as Mr. Morton requested,” she said. “Those kinds of books help support integration of immigrants in the community, which we are more than happy to support because it’s something we’re already working on right now.
“The rest will be absorbed into the general collections and just help to upgrade everything we’ve got so we can continue to be a good resource for the people of Chestermere.”
