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April 18, 2025

MRL Wins Nonprofit of the Year from Harrisonburg-Rockingham Chamber of Commerce

The Massanutten Regional Library has been awarded Nonprofit of the Year by the Harrisonburg-Rockingham Chamber of Commerce for their community collaboration and their creativity and innovation in meeting the needs of our communities.  

Originally founded in 1928, today MRL serves the residents of the City of Harrisonburg, Rockingham County, and Page County, with branches located in Bridgewater, Broadway, Elkton, Grottoes, Harrisonburg, Luray, and the town of Shenandoah. Library patrons have free access to a plethora of resources that include more than 300,000 books, DVDs, audiobooks, ebooks, e-magazines; online learning and research tools; wi-fi and computer access; and events and programs nurturing literacy and learning for people of all ages and interests. MRL strives to be the welcoming heart of the community where all come to learn, discover, create, and connect. 

“We are so honored and humbled to be recognized as Nonprofit of the Year,” Director of Advancement Megan Medeiros said. “Community connection and enrichment are always at the forefront at MRL; it’s an immense honor to be able to provide our community with what they need.” 

In addition to the community-building efforts MRL champions, they have worked to bolster and strengthen other nonprofits in the community including but not limited to a partnership with the Community Foundation of Harrisonburg and Rockingham County to help promote the Dolly Parton Imagination Library Initiative; working alongside different schools and classrooms to conduct more than 1,000 programs that reached more than 19,000 children through literacy outreach events and literacy nights; partnerships with higher education organizations like James Madison University and Eastern Mennonite University; partnerships with Harrisonburg-Rockingham Community Services Board, area health providers, the Valley Program on Aging Services, and local senior living facilities like Sunnyside and Bridgewater Retirement Community to promote health literacy in the community; and partnerships promoting English language learning with Church World Service Harrisonburg and Skyline Literacy to provide tours of the library to inform of the resources and services available, expand their Spanish language collections, add a Welcoming Library which is a curated multilingual children’s collection and display intended to share the stories of immigrants and our diverse community, and started a weekly English Conversation Club program which offers informal sessions ideal for new Americans and newly arrived residents who wish to expand and improve their English language skills. 

MRL also adapts and grows to meet the needs of the growing and changing community. In January 2025, they expanded operating hours at all seven branches in response to community input to make hours more convenient for working families. They expanded their Library of Things collections, adding free “Culture Passes” from the American Shakespeare Center, expanding museum passes from the Explore More Discovery Museum and Memory Kits for those experiencing dementia and their caregivers. MRL also partnered with the Community Gear Library to offer camping gear for check-out so that more families can experience the outdoors, leading to 257 checkouts in 2024. MRL offers financial literacy programs and STEM programming for children. To be more inclusive and welcoming, MRL has also recently added automated renewals to make it easier for patrons to continue using items as long as others are not waiting. To benefit patrons who may not be able to provide a permanent address (such as families temporarily housed in domestic violence shelters), they provide a card that allows access to their full range of online resources and borrow some items. They have added spaces to accommodate more types of users, adding a quiet study room and soundproof “pods” for individual or small group study, resulting in over 1,000 reservations from the community, a 500% increase. 

"Winning this award demonstrates both how well we try to match the needs within our community, and the love that this community has for libraries,” said Library Director Zach Elder.  “I think it gives our team the motivation to provide even better service to our patrons." 

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