The Raven Gael Blaisdell Foundation at Hall Memorial Library brings Tilton, Northfield community together

NORTHFIELD—When Paul Blaisdell’s wife Raven passed away in 2018, he wanted to honor her and her love of reading by creating a foundation with the Hall Memorial Library. Today, The Raven Gael Blaisdell Foundation is involved in several Tilton and Northfield community events, including the Movies in the Park summer series.

The Raven Gael Blaisdell Foundation at Hall Memorial Library helps encourage children to read and brings the community together by hosting events Tilton and Northfield together year-round.

“I’m very proud that my wife’s name is on it,” Paul Blaisdell said.

Paul and Raven Blaisdell were married for 34 years, living in Northfield. Paul, who’s lived in Northfield since he was 7, believes that Raven’s “greatest joy in life” was reading.

“If she could’ve done nothing else but eat, sleep, and read, she would’ve been happy,” Paul Blaisdell said. She loved to travel places through literacy and be exposed to characters that she never would be able to experience in real life.”

When Raven finished books, she would frequently donate them to the Hall Memorial Library in Northfield. Her donations were frequent enough that the library named a shelf after her called the ‘Raven Corner.’ Raven’s connection to the library was Paul’s ‘driving force’ to work with them and create the charitable foundation after her passing.

“She must’ve donated about a thousand books to the library over the years,” Paul said. “Others looked at Raven and saw the amount of joy that reading brought her in her life, and we thought that was wonderful and that it should be encouraged.”

Working with the library, Paul spent two years raising money to expand the program, and filed through the secretary of state to become a charitable corporation, and then a 501 c 3 to receive grants and outside funding.

“Our goal is to assist the library in children's programming with the intention of having children be exposed to literature and enjoy it as much as Raven did,” Paul Blaisdell said, “and to expose children to literacy, encourage them, and bring about a joy in reading that would last a lifetime.”

The charitable foundation’s board of directors is made up entirely of volunteers, some of which are staff at the library.

“I have to offer heartfelt thanks and gratitude to all who volunteer. I'm surrounded by such wonderful people” Paul Blaisdell said. “They are so creative, and always willing to help. They volunteer their time, spend hours on weekends, and I'm so blessed. They make my job relatively easy.”

The foundation is involved in putting on several different events throughout the year, including the Northfield Fall Family Fun Fest, a community dinner around Thanksgiving with free meals, the Tilton-Northfield Christmas Parade, and Tilton Northfield Old Home Day.

At every event the charity puts on, every child who attends receives a free book. In 2024, the foundation distributed over 1300 books, over 1500 2025, and 650 so far in 2026.

The foundation also created the ‘Born to Read’ program, which makes it so that anyone who goes to Tilton or Northfield town hall to register a birth certificate of their child is gifted a bag of six books: one adult book and five children’s books.

“The smiles that we get from the parents are pretty amazing,” Paul Blaisdell said. “I’m very proud of that program.”

The foundation is also heavily involved in Hall Memorial Library’s summer reading program, including the Movies in the Park Series at Riverfront Park in Tilton. During the summer, the foundation hosts a free family-friendly movie screening on the last Friday of each month from May to September.

“We want to bring families together, and make it easy for them to spend a night together,” Paul Blaisdell said. “They don't have to worry about paying for anything. It's free food, free fun, free drinks, free treats, free popcorn, and a free movie.”

The Movies in the Park event for the month of July is this Friday, with a showing of ‘Lilo and Stitch (2002)’ at 6 p.m. at Riverfront Park in Tilton. The following movie screenings are 'Road to El Dorado (2000)' on August 28 and 'Hercules (1997)' on September 25. 

To learn more about The Raven Gael Blaisdell Foundation at Hall Memorial Library, visit https://hallmemoriallibrary.org/raven-gael-blaisdell-foundation-hall-memorial-library