Our Mission

​The Mount Vernon Library Foundation's principal mission is to foster community support for the Library, its Board, and its Staff. The Foundation serves to solicit, receive, manage, and disburse corporate and individual gifts and grants for the enhancement of library facilities, materials, services and programs, including support of the efforts to build a new library building for Mount Vernon and the region. The Foundation believes strongly that a good library is an essential public service.

What that Means to Us

Statement from the Board about what the mission means to them and/or why it's so important to the local area.

Our Board

Our board of directors lead the charge in supporting our library. Learn more about them here

Hal Verrell

President

​Hal Verrell is a retired supply chain professional who has worked in the automotive, aerospace and electronics industries, and had the opportunity to travel the world negotiating contract agreements.  Involvement in the Foundation fulfills his desire to give back to his community.  Prior to moving to Mount Vernon in 2008, Hal was board president for Whatcom County Habitat for Humanity.  He strongly believes a fully functioning library provides education not only from books but also periodicals, online access, programs and interactions with others.  His own personal experience was a suburban Cleveland, Ohio library that fed his soul and also at times provided a refuge from family trauma.  And he learned that if you find the right resource, you can figure out almost anything!

Maryanne Ward

SECRETARY

Maryanne Ward is a retired Corporate Librarian. Early on she worked para-professionally in a public library in Ohio and at Skagit Valley College Library. She grew up in a rural area in South Dakota, attending a one-room country school where the “library” was a box of books dropped off by the County Superintendent and some boxes of books, marked “Frederick & Nelson”, from her Aunt in Seattle, WA! She loved being able to accompany her father on his Saturday “trip to town”, which included a visit to the little Priscilla Club Library. She moved with her husband and children to Mount Vernon in 1976. They’ve used the Mount Vernon Library eer since! Since 2006 she has served as President of the non-profit Ghana Together, which supports education and public library services in Axim, Ghana. She joined the Mount Vernon Library Foundation in 2017. Maryanne has had a lifelong love, appreciation, and respect for public libraries as centers of enrichment, lifelong learning, and social equality. She loves the city of Mount Vernon and believes that it deserves a great library. She is proud to offer whatever her capabilities are to that end!

Marija Anderson

Treasurer

Libraries have been dear to my heart all my life, but especially since 1961 when I came to U. S. from Croatia and had to learn to read and write English.  I have served both on the Mount Vernon City Library as a Library Trustee from 2006 - 2015, and I am still one of the original board members when the Mount Vernon Library Foundation was formed to present.  I was president both on the Mount Vernon City Library and the Mount Vernon Library Foundation.

I have always had a very special attachment to the libraries as it was through the library usage that I learned to speak and write English.  I cannot emphasize enough how valuable libraries have been to me.  I love books and even with all the today's technology and computers I still like to pick up a book and read it.  I hope that we will always have books available in the libraries.

I have worked for Stokley Van Camp followed by a position with the City of Mount Vernon in accounting, and retiring in 2014.  I was instrumental in setting up the computerized accounting system he computer since I had an accounting background, and I set up fixed assets for all the Mount Vernon Departments as well as inputted inventory for the City Maintenance Shop.

Since the City of Mount Vernon is in the process of building a new library, hopefully towards the end of this year, I feel proud that I have been a part of it, making it possible for a dream of building a new library possible.  My position with the MVLF now is a Treasurer.

Suzanne Butler

Director at Large

I’m never far from food or books and my hats have been many. I’ve been a teacher (preschool to college), bookstore manager and owner, restaurant kitchen manager, deli owner and caterer, farmers market manager, longtime assistant to a tv chef, cookbook editor, and writer. I retired from Skagit Valley College culinary program 3 years ago and was happy to be asked to be on the library foundation board. Years of experience have taught me how much the library means to a city and its citizens. Libraries are the model of democracy in that there’s a place for everyone there.  The library reveals the values of a city and allows a peek into its history. It is a place where people meet to discuss issues and ideas or one can go there to study quietly. In the last few years they have become necessary for people (students and adults) without computers to do work, look for work, and find needed services. I serve on the library board to support these processes in any way I can.

Harold Page

Honorary DIrector

Want to have a say in where our library is headed? We are always looking for new board members!
​Learn more here: