The St. Louis School library is about to take a major leap.
The school is one of two from Saskatchewan to receive an Indigo Love of Reading Grant for 2026. The St. Louis School will receive $10,000 and St. Marguerite in Saskatoon will be receiving $40,000 from the Indigo Love of Reading Foundation (ILOR).
The grants will be used to dramatically increase library book budgets, ensuring new books and resources are available to thousands of students, both city and province-wide. Greg Walker the principal St. Louis School said receiving the grant is amazing.
“Our librarian does a great job with keeping our library as current as she can but of course, we have limited funds,” Walker explained. “This gives her an opportunity to replace some of our older books.”
Walker said the funds will also be used to supplement some areas of the library where they want more variety.
“Things like Indigenous titles, some local authors, books about social-emotional learning and regulation, some of our LGBTQ books and some of those things as well,” Walker said.
Walker added that $10,000 can go a long way. They also plan to use some of the money to bring the library into the 21st Century.
“The plan from our librarian is to purchase a 3D printer and some supplies in order to incorporate some maker spaces and some of those types of things as well, just to promote different types of literacy in our learning space,” Walker said.
He added that any extra funding for a school is always welcome.
Walker said the application process is quite extensive. He credited librarian Lynn Boyer for doing a lot of work on the Love of Reading Grant application.
“She had to draw up with plans as to what the money was going to be used for, how it was going to transform the library, (and) the specific needs that we had in our library that she was
going to be addressing,” Walker explained. “She had to get videos from different people of testimonials and the whole bit. It was a lot of work.
“But, she’s pretty dedicated. She felt that the risk versus the reward certainly made sense. She thought it was well worth taking the chance to put that work in.”
Since the organization’s founding in 2004, the Indigo Love of Reading Foundation has committed $30,458,000 to over 500 Canadian schools. Walker said the school was extremely grateful for the support.
“We have many partnerships at our school and without those, we wouldn’t be able to offer the quality programming that we do, so we’re certainly grateful for another opportunity to improve our learning spaces,” Walker said.
The ILOR committed over 1.8 million dollars to 50 schools across the country, impacting almost 17,000 students.
michael.oleksyn@paherald.sk.ca
