Career Online High School
The Library held its first in-person Career Online High School graduation in three years in the fall of 2022. Library Foundation of Los Angeles President and CEO Stacy Lieberman joined City Librarian John F. Szabo for the ceremony. They were also joined by former Mayor Garcetti and the then President of the Board of Library Commissioners Bích Ngọc Cao. Among the day’s most memorable moments was the story of Stuart Hughes, a graduate who shared how health concerns—first his father’s and then his own—affected his schooling and then his work over the years, and how COHS is now helping him to pursue a career in the healthcare field. Career Online High School is a free program offered by the Los Angeles Public Library to adults age 19 and older who live or work in Los Anegeles and need to complete their high school diploma, helping to open doors to opportunities for higher education, a better job or promotion, and more.
Teens Leading Change
Teens Leading Change is a program of the Los Angeles Public Library that gives teens the opportunity to develop and participate in civic action by designing projects with librarians and community stakeholders that have ambitious yet achievable goals and focus on the issues teens care about most in communities throughout Los Angeles. Teens Leading Change Cycle 7 presented a showcase of projects including protecting pollinators, native plants and biodiversity, waste management, social media, and mental health. Pictured above are teen volunteers and Library staff representing from the Palisades, Palms-Rancho, Platt, Playa Vista, and Studio City Branch Libraries.
This program is supported by the Lenore S. and Bernard A. Greenberg Fund and Zegar Family Foundation.
Summer with the Library
Clayton Kershaw reads with his family for story-time at the Edendale Branch
During summer 2023, more than 29,000 children, teens, and adults joined Summer Reading, supported by the LFLA, and read for 5,743,344 minutes. The Library donated 11,000 books to youth, organized pop-up libraries at 23 day camps in low-income communities, and delivered 18 Your Author Series events engaging youth with notable authors. Summer with the Library was available at 73 libraries citywide and off-site locations, ensuring free summer learning for all who wanted to participate. In partnership with the Los Angeles Dodgers Foundation, the LAPL co-presented story–time activations at 10 libraries and Pop–Up Library locations with LA Dodgers players Clayton Kershaw and Will Smith and beloved Dodgers alums like Al Ferrara.
This program is supported by California State Library, The Council of the Library Foundation, Estate of Victoria Erteszek Foote, Maxwell H. and Muriel S. Gluck Endowment, Lenore S. and Bernard A. Greenberg Fund, Los Angeles Dodgers Foundation, Marjorie Luttenbacher, The Morrison and Foerster Foundation, The Albert Parvin Foundation, Walter and Holly Thomson Foundation, Bank of America, N.A., Co-Trustee, Flora Thornton Endowment.