December 2022
Holiday Better Books & Bake Sale
The Friends hosted their “HOLIDAY BETTER BOOKS & BAKE SALE” in the lobby of the library on Friday and Saturday, December 2-3, 2022. Fourteen members helped set up the booth, lifted, unloaded and sorted boxes of new and “just-like-new” books, acted as cashiers during the sale, and tore down the booth after the sale. Co-chairs of the book sale side of the event, Paul and Pat Renner, said “Holding the sale in the library lobby is a great venue, as almost everyone who comes into the building loves books.”
This year we added a bake sale, which brought in more than one-third of the $1,200.00 grand total for the event. Bake Sale co-chairs, Sue Peters and Dianne Daniels, did an outstanding job recruiting a wide assortment of goodies…pies, cakes, cookies, tarts, scones, biscotti, breads, strudels, Danish pastry, etc. The two of them worked behind the scenes in the kitchen all day Friday and Saturday sorting, packaging and labeling all the baked goods. Everything was beautifully displayed and professionally packaged to appeal to the sweet tooth of our customer base…many of them being our Friends members!
September 2022
Month-Long Silent Auction
Hard-working Friends who spent Sunday afternoon schlepping, hauling, assembling, cleaning, & displaying the fifty auction items in time for the unveiling Monday morning.
The Friends unveiled their MONTH-LONG SILENT AUCTION on Monday, August 29th, after suspending the event for two and a half years, due to COVID. Eleven hard-working, sweating, but cheerful, Friends volunteers (see top photo) set up the auction the previous afternoon, which involved two hours of non-stop hauling of tables, grid, and all the auction items…one weighing 250 pounds. Everyone agreed we need to recruit younger members!
The event, featuring fifty new or “just-like-new” donated items, ran through the entire month of September. There was something for everyone, and co-chairs, Bryan and Sandy Grummon, swore it was the best selection of auction items ever offered in the eleven year history of this event. (Friends member, Pat Renner, mentioned that Sandy says this every year.)
For the first time ever, 50% of the auction was traditionally “guy” items. When long-time Friends member, Lorraine Espinoza-Lowe, decided to move away from Gold Beach, she faced the daunting task of disposing of a garage full of tools owned by her husband, John Lowe, who passed away in 2019. She made an incredibly generous offer to the Friends of the Library: take what you want for the upcoming Month-Long Silent Auction. We ended up with a brand new band saw, reciprocating saw, drill press, hammer drill, and Leatherman multi-tool, and “as-good-as-new” orbital sander, angle grinder, trigger clamps, and bench grinder.
Friends members Dianne Daniels, Denise King, Paul Renner, Carl King and Lucie LaBonte donated a $3,500 recumbent elliptical trainer, a $850 drone, a $549 banjo, a pricey titanium bicycle, and a $450 generator, respectively. These five high-end auction items received lots of attention and bids, but it was surprising how many bids were submitted for a stained glass lamp, a cedar chest and Legos.
The auction ended with the ringing of a bell at 5:00 p.m. on Friday, September 30th. A group of close to 30 people hovered around the bid sheets between 4:30 and 5:00, furtively outbidding one another. The last-minute flurry of activity accelerated bids into record breaking territory. When the final tally was computed, the Friends had raised $1,000.00 more than in any previous auction…$8,274.00!
August 2022
Dedication of Mobile Shelf Units
Three new custom bookshelves were dedicated after the August 16th meeting of the Friends. Julie Phillips and John Connor, local library users and supporters, generously donated $8,000.00 to the Friends to purchase the portable shelving units.
The shelves, which separate the play area from the early reader section, are on wheels and can be rolled aside and easily locked into place to make more room for Story Time. The added flexibility the shelves provide is much appreciated by Children’s Librarian, Janee Lensing, who now sees options for reconfiguring the space, rather than barriers. Stop by the library and sneak a peek.
July 2022
Party in the Park
A gorgeous sunny day, free picnic lunches, and carnival games for grade-school aged youngsters drew a mob of 203 kids to PARTY IN THE PARK. After a two-year hiatus due to COVID, the Friends of the Library and fifteen other local organizations hosted booths at the community-wide carnival event on July 9th in Buffington Park.
The theme for the event this year was “Dragons and Unicorns.” The Friends offered a five-station obstacle course… “Wings of Fire Challenge”…named after a popular children’s book series about dragons. The booth was decorated with three 6′ long dragons (printed on the library’s large format printer) and a dozen smaller intricately cut exact replicas hanging from the canopy braces. Each child had to crawl through a play-tunnel, hop from one bucket to the next in a series of six, throw three bean bags, carry a dragon egg on a wooden spoon to a realistic dragon nest, and end the course by walking a balance beam. Each youngster was timed from start to finish, and the time was written on the back of a gold medal that was given to the child to wear.
Co-chairmen, Bill and Lora Williams, said the event was a huge success, thanks to all the hard work put forth by a cadre of Friends volunteers. Sue Peters, who participated in all the organizational meetings and contributed her artistic talent, said the kids loved running the obstacle course, and several returned to see if they could beat their original times.
May 2022
The Great Book & Bake Sale
After nine days and the efforts of volunteers working more than 350 combined man-hours, the Friends of Curry Public Library’s “Great Book & Bake Sale” was a huge success. Thanks to the generosity of dozens of local people who donated a bazillion gently used books, talented bakers who contributed tempting goodies to the bake sale side of the event, and the tireless work of a group of outstanding volunteers, this fundraiser brought in a record-breaking $4,786.00.
After years of hosting this event over Presidents’ Day weekend, an uptick in COVID numbers in January pushed the sale forward to Memorial Day weekend. A pent-up demand among locals for bargain-priced books, and lots of out-of-town visitors looking for something to do on the rainy weekend, generated record-breaking sales. People were lined up in the lobby to be among the first to shop the best selection of books at the “members only sale” on Friday night. Many folks paid for Friends’ memberships, specifically to attend the sneak preview.
Over 40 volunteers loaded, unloaded, hauled, stacked, unpacked and sorted hundreds of boxes of books, sold books and baked goods, and after the last customer left at noon on May 30th, boxed the left-over books, hauled/loaded the boxes onto waiting trailers, folded and moved 53 tables, and broke down cardboard boxes. It took 217 man-hours to set up the sale, and exactly 2 hours and 33 minutes (61.25 man-hours) to tear it all down! It was a lot of HARD WORK, and hats off to the energetic, uncomplaining folks who spent a good chunk of time at the library working their tails off before, during and after the sale.
The Bake Sale portion of the event was co-chaired by Dianne Daniels and Sue Peters, who packaged/displayed everything beautifully. EVERYTHING was sold by 1:30 on Saturday, and they and their friends had to rush home and bake all night to have something to sell on Sunday. The Bake Sale brought in close to $600.00 of the total. It’s a good thing our customer base had a sweet tooth!
January 2022
Dedication of Holds Kiosk
A new custom “holds kiosk” was dedicated by the Friends on Wednesday, January 5th in the lobby of the library. Funding for the beautiful piece of furniture was provided by a generous donation to the Friends in memory of Mark Rasmussen, a library supporter and avid reader. The mobile, multi-use unit replaced a utilitarian…and not very attractive…shelf the library had used for the prior twenty-two months.
The three-way cabinet was custom built by local furniture designer and part-time library employee, Brodey Carpenter, owner of Dredge Design. It is a repository for books, DVDs, and audio-books ordered on-line by library users, or requested by phone. As soon as the materials are pulled from the library’s shelves, or are delivered from any of the fourteen libraries located in Curry and Coos counties, they are checked out and placed on shelves in the kiosk, located in the lobby. Folks can drive up to the front door of the library, run in, and pull their pre-checked out books from the shelves, with no wait time whatsoever.
The lobby “holds shelf” concept was the brain-child of library director, Jeremy Skinner, during the early days of COVID, when the library was closed to in-person service. While other libraries locked their doors and provided no means of checking out books during the first months of the pandemic, the “holds shelf” allowed our local library to continuously circulate books while avoiding in-person contact. It proved to be so popular with library users, Jeremy made it a permanent fixture in the library. With the recent upgrade to the new, custom designed/built kiosk, it is not only serviceable, it is an attractive, eye-catching addition to the library. Stop by and take a look!
Website Management
Work Group
George Converse has an extensive programming background and is the technical lead of the Website Management Work Group. George, Ali Van Otterloo, Bryan Grummon, Jeremy Skinner, and Sandy Grummon took the training course from the Friends’ website designer, Anneliese Dehner. Updating the website on a monthly basis was a group effort from May 2016 through September 2016, but once everyone was comfortable with the WordPress software, tasks were allocated to each Work Group member. Since 2019, Ali and Sandy have updated and tweaked the site on a monthly basis, posting current agendas, minutes, treasurer’s reports, and photos from recent Friends’ events.
Grant Writing
Work Group
Nine members of the Grant Writing Work Group (Judi Collins, Sandy Grummon, Bryan Moe, Nancy Rogers, Terry Shannon, Jeremy Skinner, Phoebe Skinner, and Mary Uhlir) have attended a 20 hour “Learn By Doing Grant Writing Workshop,” and the group has applied for several grants since 2015, receiving funding amounting to $395,910.
In 2020, we received the following grants:
- $5,000 Tammis Day Foundation
To view grants from 2019, click below
Grants 2019
To view grants from 2018, click below
Grants 2018
To view grants from 2017, click below
Grants 2017
To view grants from 2016, click below
Grants 2016
To view grants from 2015, click below
Grants 2015