Prince George's County Memorial Library System is focused on the early literacy needs of high risk families in our neighborhoods, which is also a key concern for County government. Nowhere is the risk higher than at Shepherd's Cove. The Library was brought in to supply materials and technology support to the women and children, with grant funding. By connecting this work with an inquiry from IKEA, we were able to provide programming to the merchant, shared marketing and IKEA offered to provide furnishings to the shelter for families sleeping six families to a room with no cribs for infants.

PGCMLS worked with the shelter for homeless women and children to improve their resources with a small grant, including new books and tablets for school-aged children and a Teen Tech Center for homework. A tearful teacher was grateful to see this support coming for "her kids" who are our kids! To multiply the effect with other interested agencies made the impact of the original grant much greater, with programming from the library, new books for families to begin a home collection, construction help from a contractor and cribs and storage pieces from IKEA.

With the end of the project in sight, the average residency of more than 100 women and children at the shelter will have the current and working technology needed to aid their next steps with access to library resources. We count on the habit of turning to the library for help to continue for both the mothers and the children. The County knows it can relay on the library to build strong relationships. The shelter families are better off for the help. IKEA feels a stronger connection to its neighbors.