Category: Fundraising

Friends Spring Used Book Sale

Schedule
The sale will begin with a Members Only Pre-Sale, Wednesday evening, May 13 from 5:30 to 7:30. Only current Friends of the Forest Grove Library members will be admitted. Memberships may be acquired or renewed at the door.
The general admission sale is scheduled for Thursday, May 14 through Saturday, May 16. Hours correspond with the Library’s open hours: Thursday 9:30–7:30, Friday and Saturday 9:30–5:30. Over 8,000 books and other media will be on sale.

Prices
Hardback books are $3, mass market paperbacks (4″ wide) $1, other paperbound books $2, children’s books and coffee table books are priced as marked, CDs, LPs and audio books are $1 and multi-title media sets are $3.

Members Discount
On Friday, May 15, current members of Friends of the Forest Grove Library get a 20% discount on their purchases. Memberships can be started or renewed at the book sale. Dues remain the same: $10 Individual / $20 Family / $35 Contributing / $100 Sustaining. Members receive twice-a-year newsletters announcing book sales and the Friends annual meeting.

Bag Sale
On Saturday, May 16, all shoppers can fill standard brown paper grocery bags with books and other media and pay just $10 per bag full.

You can help
Volunteers make the sale possible. We need and appreciate your help with set-up (Monday, May 11 to Wednesday, May 13), the sale itself (Thursday, the 14th to Saturday, the 16th) and to clean-up (the morning of Monday, May 18). Please call Katie Allnutt at (971) 322-7933 to schedule your preferred job and time slot. Volunteers get two free books of their choice for each shift.

Dealer alert: Friends volunteers have screened book donations and library discards and removed some of them for sale online.

Friends contributing to the Library

Colleen Winters, The Forest Grove City Library Director, recently sent this email to the Friends Board.

HI, Friends,

 At the meeting on Wednesday, I mentioned that Nathan had compiled a list of Friends purchases this year.

Here is the list and as you can see, it is quite a range of items and demonstrates how important your support is to the library.

 Thank you very, very much.

 Colleen

Things Friends have purchased for us this year:

  • Shelving for our Storytime closet – two wire shelves and two metal countertop shelves for working on crafts. 
  • Snacks like pizza, drinks, and popcorn for TLC events, volunteer work parties, and other programs. 
  • Poinsettias to decorate the Library during December. 
  • Plexi glass signage hangers and fixative for entire building. Every shelf, every emergency sign.  
  • Materials for adult art programs 
  • Giveaway toys and prizes for Library Card Sign-up month and other contests. 
  • 200+ stickers and other fun items each month to give away to people who finish library scavenger hunts. 
  • Summer Reading prize baskets for teens. 
  • Branded promotional items for Banned Book Week. 
  • A Keurig coffee/tea machine for staff room
  • Bottled water, hand warmers, and other supplies to distribute when we encounter someone in the building in need of basic human care. 
  • Performers 
  • Incentive Books for Summer Reading Program – about $2,000 last summer, and more probably an additional $2-5K next summer. 
  • Donations for Meals on Wheels People for Adult SRP. 

And that is just this year and isn’t nearly exhaustive. 

-Colleen

What happens to the books you donate?

Books and other materials donated to the Forest Grove City Library are first reviewed by Library Staff to see if they should be added to the Library’s inventory.

For those that are not selected, and for books de-selected from the Library collection by staff, Friends of the Library volunteers check used book prices online to pick out those that are valued at $8 or more. Most of them will be put on sale at Amazon.com under Friends’ dealership name, “forestgrovelibraryfriends.”  Friends have more than 2600 books on sale through Amazon and these online sales will net more than $8,000 for the Library during the Friends fiscal year.

Books in good condition that are not selected for online sales are sorted by Friends volunteers for the twice-a-year book sales and for ongoing sales in the library. The twice-a-year sales are Friends’ primary income source.  They have been making about $10,000 a year.  The ongoing in-library sales are a new Friends project.

Making money for the Library is one of Friends’ top priorities but this process for library donations and discards has other benefits: (1) Between donations and discards, the library has around 12,000 books to dispose of every six months, (2) turning donations away would be bad for the Library’s public relations, (3) friends efforts make money for library programs and help recirculate these books in our own community.

Help Friends Help Your Library

Have your income taxes done at H&R Block, and take this form to your Block Tax Professional.  If you are a new Block customer, the company will give $20 to Friends of the Forest Grove Library.

Another way to easily donate to Friends is through the AmazonSmile program.  When Amazon customers log on through the smile.amazon.com site, 0.5% of the sales price of most of the items they purchase will be donated by the Amazon Foundation to Friends of the Forest Grove Library.  No cost is incurred by either the purchaser or Friends.  None of the purchaser’s privileges at Amazon (Amazon Prime benefits, for example) are affected when buying through AmazonSmile.

The first time you log on to smile.amazon.com, you will be asked to name the non-profit organization of your choice.  To do so, there is a search option.  The registered name for Friends is Friends of the Forest Grove Public Library, Inc.

This is an easy way to help your Friends of the Library and your Forest Grove City Library at no cost to you!  Make it a habit to log on to Amazon through smile.amazon.com.

 Or write a check!  We don’t have a ‘donate button’ on this website yet but don’t let that stop you from donating to Friends! Send your check, with a note that it’s a donation, to: Friends of the Forest Grove Library 2114 Pacific Ave. Forest Grove, OR 97116

Friends’ federal tax ID: 93-6089869