What started out as a way to teach her children to give to the community quickly became so much more. Monica Papasian put a lending library out front of her house to teach her children about giving to the community, and with the hopes of helping her children to love to read.

Shortly after setting up the library, our nation was devastated by the killing of George Floyd. Monica's 9 year old son, Charlie, was so upset about the killing that he asked to make a lawn sign to express his discontent. During this time, the Papasian family decided to change the focus of the library to provide materials on racism and our BIPOC friends. Originally named as an anti-racist library we quickly learned we wanted to represent so much more. We changed our name to The Papasian Library for Equality and Inclusion and expanded our materials to provide materials on, by, about, and to educate on: racism, homophobia, discrimination, and on minority, marginalized, under-served and under-represented groups in our community. 

 

During our first year we did an online reading as part of the HRC Jazz & Friends National Day of School & Community Readings. We participated in the 45th Anniversary Hmong Celebration and sponsored a movie screening, we hosted the Lanterns of Love event. We held a You are the Superhero event with our community police officer and a local children's author as our special guests. We also worked with local schools to help circulate information on the library, and we had the privilege of hosting a local girl scout meeting.

In December of 2021 the library received its determination letter from the IRS and officially became a 501c(3) community service non-profit.