City-County Council member gives salary to local library

City-County Councilor Steve Talley will donate his council salary over the next four years to launch an endowment benefitting children’s programming through the Indianapolis Public Library Foundation.

Talley made the announcement Tuesday morning at Turning Point Schools on North Post Road on the city’s far-east side.

The endowment, called the Donna D. Talley Story Theatre Fund, will honor Talley’s late wife, Donna, who believed in the importance of reading. She died in 2006.

The fund will be managed by the Central Indiana Community Foundation and will be supported by an initial gift of $25,000 from Tim and Tanya Harris, founders of Turning Point Schools.

Talley has pledged to donate to the fund his council salary during the next four years, which will total about $52,000, in addition to a full contribution from his future council retirement plan, according to a news release.

“It is a tremendous comfort to know that Donna’s legacy will always live, benefitting future generations of leaders,” Talley said in the prepared statement. “I believe public libraries will always play an important role in the future of young people, and that is why it is so important to support the library through gifts to the library foundation.”

Following her death, Donna Talley’s family raised $12,000 through a privately funded memorial campaign to create a story theater at the East 38th Street branch, the neighborhood library where she volunteered.

The new fund will enable the Indianapolis-Marion County Public Library to build on its early childhood literacy activities, including its Ready to Read initiative that helps prepare children for kindergarten by fostering early literacy skills.

Mayor Greg Ballard praised Donna Talley’s passion for children’s learning by proclaiming Feb. 21 as Donna D. Talley Story Theatre Fund Day in Indianapolis.