Our Mission

¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯ Annual Lecture Series -- We organize and present annually eight free monthly public lectures (September to April). Our speakers -- academics, professionals, writers, poets, visual and material artists, present on a variety of contemporary and historical subjects. A lengthy question and answer period for the audience follows each lecture.

Maitland Banting Silver Quill Award and Young Poet Award -- Awards of up to $200 are offered annually for originality combined with excellent command of language, in both short-story fiction and poetry, to winners and runner-ups in the HPL's Power of the Pen competition.

da Vinci Science Fair Award -- Awards of up to $300 are offered annually to local students entered in the Bay Area Science and Engineering Fair (BASEF). Our judges look for work that combines originality with sound, demonstrated understanding of the scientific method.

We donate annually to the HPL to help defray the HPL's Power of the Pen expenses.