The Templeton Library had its first year of balanced finances thanks to community members who donated more than $3,700 to keep it out of the red.
Templeton Community Library Association President Melinda Reed said that by the end of the year, the association realized it only had a $3,600 budget deficit, so she took to the library’s Facebook page asking for help on New Year’s Eve.
“So, I put a post on Facebook and said … if 100 people gave us $36, that would put us over into the black,” Reed said, “and the response was amazing. My phone started buzzing.”
The Templeton Library, located on Main Street, is privately funded, meaning it doesn’t receive any funding from the county and solely relies on fundraising and donations to remain in operation.
Reed said she posted the request on Dec. 31 in the morning.
“I went off to the Paso Robles bonfire thinking that, you know, we’ve done pretty well with all of that, and I’d be happy with whatever amount that came in,” she said. “Then by the time I got home that night, my treasurer called me and said, ‘You’re over the top.'”
The library had received $3,741 in donations.
The current Templeton Library opened in 2022 and includes nine white farmhouse-styled modular buildings in total—six are used for bookshelves and three for administration.
“It’s one of the most earthquake-proof buildings in SLO County, because we have a seismic gap that joins the two sections together,” Reed said. “It’s very safe and it’s very solid. … So, it’s a fabulous, wide open little building.”
According to Reed, the library has more than 1,500 library-card holders and more than 8,000 books, including a collection of every Caldecott winner since 1938.
“Everything in our library has either been donated to us or has been purchased with donated funds … and we’re really quite proud of that, because it exceeds some of the smaller libraries in SLO County that are county funded,” she said.
The SLO County funded Templeton Library closed in 1979 after Proposition 13 reduced city and county property tax revenues. Four other county branches also closed at the time, but the county later reopened them. Templeton remained closed, according to the library’s website.
Since 2000, the library has been a work in progress after a local boy made opening a new library his Eagle Scout project. Working with SLO County, the plan was to partner 50/50 to fund a new library. The library association raised more than $1 million in funds, but COVID-19 left the county unable to provide the other half.
Reed said they didn’t let that discourage them, and the association decided to design and build the library itself.
To fund ongoing operations, the library hosts monthly flea markets in its parking lot where residents can pay for a booth to sell items, or they can just donate the items to the library to sell itself, Reed said.
“They give us all kinds of things,” Reed said, including art, houseware, silver and crystal, and sometimes computers. “So, we’re very grassroots and very much in tune with the community and what the needs and wants of the community are.”
Reed said it costs about $80,000 per year to operate the library—including the salary of its one paid staff member, maintaining its own catalog system, and running a summer reading program, among other events throughout the year.
“We’re small, but we’re mighty,” Reed said. “But it just shows that we’re trying to reflect what our community wants to read, and we feel that that’s really important.” Δ
This article appears in Volunteers 2025.