ROWLEY – Friends of the Rowley Public Library President Sieglinde Aigner-Crooks shared that the library is blessed with amazing volunteers, donors, and shoppers who partake in their twice-yearly book sale. “The money goes straight to mostly the childrens’ programming,” Sieglinde shared. The Friends try to raise about $10,000 each year through various activities.
Alan and Maureen Aulson interviewed Sieglinde and Megan McCormick, the library assistant for youth services at their semi-annual book sale fundraiser. Megan shared that “this is one of the huge fundraisers that gives us so many funds for all the programming that we do.”
“It’s incredible. I mean the Friends make everything that we do possible,” Megan said. “We have constant programming for the kids, and we rely on the Friends for everything that we do. They do a lot of behind the scenes things too: they give us money for landscaping of the library, for the website, for the e-mail program that we use to send out newsletters. They do a lot of things. They’re kind of the unsung heroes. We rely on them for a lot of stuff. They’re really incredible.”
Megan smiled when she noted that the Aulson’s were responsible for bring Goats to Go to the library for the children. “That would absolutely not have happened without the Friends – I can say that without a doubt. And, they need more volunteers.”
The library will do a free holiday shop in December for the children. They recently held a Halloween costume event for kids, where they got to pick out – for free – costumes for the big day. “They all to try them on. We’re a lot more than books around here.”♦
