Montour Falls Memorial Library Awarded $10k to Empower Staff and Cultivate a Community Connection and Passion For Math
Events:
Pi Day Celebration • March 14th, 2026
Infinity Day Celebration • August 8th, 2026
Fibonacci Day Celebration • November 23rd, 2026
The Montour Falls Memorial Library is pleased to announce that our library has been selected to participate in the 2025-2026 Infinite Sums Rural & Small Libraries Cohort Grant Program. Participation in this initiative is designed to strengthen the confidence of our staff as library leaders. It will also provide our staff with the experiences and tools they need to foster and cultivate meaningful connections within our community to create positive, lasting change through this professional development experience and become math ambassadors.
As part of this grant, we are partnering with the Association for Rural and Small Libraries (ARSL), the Simons Foundation, and Scistarter to host math inspired community-wide events for patrons of all ages on Pi Day (March 14), Infinity Day (August 8), and Fibonacci Day (November 23) in 2026, to be held at the Montour Falls Memorial Library.
This program seeks to inspire a collective of math ‘ambassadors,’ challenging existing ideas of who can and should lead math engagement efforts. The initiative will highlight individuals from within our rural community, parents and caregivers, artists and cultural influencers to engage and celebrate the amazing things math helps them to achieve. Infinite Sums will change the trajectory of how math is appreciated and pursued. Through memorable experiences, people will see the beauty in math’s infinite intricacies – and discover how they fit into the pattern.
Please join us for our community-wide events, which will be announced on the Montour Falls Library website and social media accounts, but also stay tuned for additional math related programming throughout the year!
The Simons Foundation’s Science, Society & Culture division seeks to provide opportunities for people to forge a connection to science — whether for the first time or a lifetime. Through our initiatives, we work to inspire a feeling of awe and wonder, foster connections between people and science, and support environments that provide a sense of belonging. The Simons Foundation’s mission is to advance the frontiers of research in mathematics and the basic sciences. Since its founding in 1994 by Jim and Marilyn Simons, the foundation has been a champion of basic science through grant funding, support for research, and public engagement. We believe in asking big questions and providing sustained support to researchers working to unravel the mysteries of the universe. For more information, visit infinitesums.simonsfoundation.org.