Our story begins with the closure and sale of the Martin Luther King, Jr. Library on 19th and Cedar Street in the City of Tacoma. This library was originally established to serve the literary needs of the Hilltop Community.

In February and March, 2014, a series of four cafes, addressing the replacement of the library and the restoration of literacy services, were attended by over 120 community and organizational representatives. Two main ideas emerged during the cafes. The first was the idea of advocacy not only at the policy level but also with businesses and the residents of the Hilltop Community. The second was that the Hilltop needed the replacement of the physical library space that included multi-media services, the arts, and multi-generational literary programming comparable to the rest of the libraries in Pierce County and Seattle. General comments of the February 28 café indicated people were anxious to get started on the project when they closed the meeting with the following statement “Why wait; let’s access our strengths and let’s do something now; lets create something better than what we had”.