Sunday 15 February 2015

Sunday February 15th, 2015 The Friends of the Library

The Friends of the Library are community members who share a love for libraries and a belief that supporting libraries is an essential way to strengthen our community. But they do a lot more than just support libraries philosophically. They are a hard-working group of volunteers who do a tremendous job promoting and fund-raising to help the Library achieve its goals and continue innovating and enriching lives. For instance, they are the silent partners for children’s literacy when they have funded the reading assistance program Readers are Leaders or given us money to replace worn books in our EZ READ collection. They are the dedicated volunteers who deliver books and audio-books to those who are home-bound. They were key partners in getting the original County Park library opened and the Mary J.L. Black Library rebuilt. In this past three years alone, they have contributed $50,000 towards the renovation of the County Park Library. We would not have many of the special collections, events or services without their ongoing support and so I want to take the time in this article to share that with readers and to thank them publically.

Tina Tucker, Director of Communities, has always worked closely with the Friends and she relates, “The Friends of the Library are simply incredible! Led by a small, dedicated executive, this mighty group of volunteers helps to raise a considerable amount of money every year. We are so grateful to them and I feel very fortunate to work with them.”

How do they do it? It is hard to believe, but it is through their activities such as charity bingos and their used bookstore and special sales. Nickels and dimes will add up but imagine how hard these people have to work to raise that level of funding!

If you have never visited their Bookstore in Victoriaville Mall before, you may not realize what treasures can be found there. Nadine Ellement, the Friends bookstore manager says that new (used) material arrives almost every day. Some are books no longer needed at the library and many are donations from the public. “Some people come in every day to check out the shelves”, she says. “There is something for everyone, whether it is history, children’s books, romances, lifestyle or cookbooks.” Volunteers process the donations, price them and arrange them for browsing by genres or subjects. A few times a year the Friends have a giant book sale and one is coming up soon. There will be bargains a-plenty with all in-store materials half price and other titles available for a Buck-a- Bag. That will be happening at the bookstore on Friday February 27 from 11am to 4pm and Saturday February 28 from 10am to 2pm.

The Friends welcome donations of gently used books and also individuals who are interested in joining them in their good work. We thank them for doing so very much to support the library and encourage you to help them to continue to make such a positive difference in our community. We love our Friends.


Angela Meady

No comments: