Each weekday after school, children living with their mothers in temporary housing provided by Sisters Place Inc. in Clairton gather in the learning center established in their town house complex where they are able to use a library filled with reference materials to help them with homework.

For the past two summers, children staying at the Women's Center and Shelter of Greater Pittsburgh, a crisis shelter for victims of domestic abuse, were treated to story time and arts and crafts as part of a summer camp.

An unlikely link exists between the two groups of homeless children: The Bethel Park Public Library.

The library, under former Director Cheryl Naphsa, initiated an outreach in 2006 to serve children living in homeless shelters around the Allegheny County.

"I just could not believe that Bethel Park -- that is not even close to us -- was willing to do this for us," said Stephanie Pettus, children's program supervisor at the Women's Center and Shelter, located in Pittsburgh's East End.

Bethel Park Library's efforts to help the homeless, called the "Rays of Hope Program," garnered an award in April from the Pennsylvania Library Association for "Best Practices in Early Learning."

In addition, last month it received an award from the Allegheny County Library Association for "Excellence in Service Provided to the Underserved."

The irony of the awards is that they come in the wake of a cut in state funding to the Bethel Park library for 2007 that has forced the staff to abandon most of the work it had been doing with homeless shelters, said Ingrid Kalchthaler, Bethel Park's children's librarian.

"I think this is our purpose, to come to people who don't have a library, to come to them with an open hand. Then to do this and to have it come to a close, that's a huge disappointment," said Barbara Berret, another children's librarian from Bethel Park.

Jennifer Banks Vickers, managing director of the Homeless Childrens Education Fund, which partnered with the Bethel Park library, said the library staff laid a solid foundation for getting library services to the homeless.

Now her agency is hoping to build upon that foundation. She said the organization recently received funding from the Pittsburgh Foundation, the Robert and Mary Weisbord Charitable Trust and the USAirways Foundation to hire a reading specialist to work with the homeless shelters.

That specialist will coordinate and train community volunteers to come to the centers and read one-on-one with the children.

In addition, the program is now seeking foundation funding to hire a librarian to maintain and update the libraries created in the shelters by the Bethel Park library staff and to coordinate some programming at the shelters.

Through the effort of the Bethel Park library staff, in particular Mrs. Berret, libraries of about 700 books were created at each of the 17 homeless shelters served by the homeless children's fund. The materials include a wide range of topics, including parenting publications, preschool books, reference books and novels. Each library also got a DVD player, map of the world and globe.

The Bethel Park library donated staff services and the children's fund secured a $100,000 Educational Mentoring Grant from the state Education Department to fund the purchases. Mrs. Berret said she spent time in each of the centers getting to know the clientele and creating the library collection to meet their needs.

"I am particularly passionate about this because I was right there in the thick of things in each of the centers," Mrs. Berret said.

In addition to establishing the libraries at the shelters, the Bethel Park library staff also helped residents of the centers to get library cards so they could access public libraries near the centers, though some of the libraries would not allow them to check out books because they were homeless.

"It was hard to see the discrimination and lack of resources available to them," Ms. Kalchthaler said. "But we can understand the position of the libraries because some of them are in areas where they are struggling to begin with."

The Bethel Park library also conducted programming, including arts and crafts, story times and seasonal celebrations, at some of the shelters, such as that done during the summer camp at the Women's Center and Shelter.

The programming was done with staff members and volunteers, including a group of Duquesne University students who were trained by Bethel Park library staff to work with children at the YWCA Bridge Housing program in Wilkinsburg.

Staff members of the homeless shelters said the services and libraries that the Bethel Park staff were able to provide were invaluable.

"Now we have a lot of materials so the kids can really work on their academic skills," said Judy Winstead, program director of Sisters Place Inc.

Jolie Meade, child advocate at Womansplace, a crisis shelter in McKeesport, said the library created there by Mrs. Berret is "amazing."

"The books aren't just for the children but for the mothers as well. I use a lot of the books on anger and feelings when I do counseling with the kids," Miss Meade said.

Mrs. Pettus at the Women's Center and Shelter of Greater Pittsburgh said both the library and the programming that Bethel Park has done at the center has meant a lot to the children who pass through there.

"It's really hard for our kids because they have been uprooted and brought to a strange place. We try to make it as much fun as possible," Mrs. Pettus said. "It really makes a difference to them that someone outside wants to come and spend time with them and do something for them."

Mrs. Berret said she is hoping the children's education fund is able to come up with funding for a librarian to oversee the system of libraries that was created in the homeless shelters and to provide some programming for the children and families who use the shelters.

"It's about reaching people and providing access, especially to people who are down on their luck," she said.