Addie Mae Collins Library

To the Editors:

The Addie Mae Collins Library and Storefront School begins its fifth year in Harlem on the eighth of October. It is a place where little children from six months to four years discover the mystery of their childhood. I must raise $40,000 a year to support it: $30,000 in cash and $10,000 to $15,000 in in-kind contributions. The government pays the rent and one salary. Our staff numbers about ten and they are all from the community. (We are tax-exempt.) The director receives no salary. Each child gets complete medical care. They are fed breakfast and lunch. The Storefront has grown into a most beautiful and joyous and real place. After four full years it has become part of the very fiber of the community.

We get no foundation help at all. I must beg for every cent. We ask for everything: warm, clean, well tended for clothes; food, money, crayons, paper, paste, paint, games, toy trucks and bicycles, climbing apparatus for use indoors and outdoors. We can use volunteers too, but sane ones, faithful ones. No white or black neurotics with delusions of power or grandeur are welcome. We exist to be the servants of the children and of the community.

Ned O’Gorman

Addie Mae Collins Library and Storefront School

2029 Madison Avenue (location of school)

2067 Fifth Avenue (mailing address)

831-1299