Henry & Anne Zarrow

Among their many philanthropic interests in the Tulsa community, Mr. and Mrs. Zarrow have focused a good deal of attention on the Tulsa City-County Library System. They have made significant gifts to the capital campaigns for the Hardesty Regional Library, the Herman and Kate Kaiser Library, and to the Judy Z. Kishner Library. Judy is the Zarrow’s daughter, and has also been very involved with the System, serving on the Library Commission and Tulsa Library Trust for many years.

They have had a special interest in children and reading. Toward that end, they established the Anne V. Zarrow Award for Young Peoples’ Literature which is awarded annually to a young peoples’ author. The author visits a school in Tulsa prior to the award ceremony at the Library, which is attended by hundreds of people each year. They funded a project called “Mr. Henry’s Books” whereby they donate books written by the visiting author so that children in the area may have copies of their own to keep.

The Zarrows have also helped fund the Hispanic Resource Center, provided a sculpture for the Zarrow Regional Library, and have made a sizable donation to the Tulsa Library Trust’s endowment at the Community Foundation which enables the System to purchase new children’s books each year. The Zarrow family continues to be involved to this day.