Category: Fundraising events

2024 Spring Used Book Sale Alert. We have all the books we need for the Spring Sale and no room to store more. Please donate your books after the sale. Thank you!

Schedule
Friends’ Spring Used Book Sale is scheduled for Thursday, May 16 through Saturday, May 18. Hours correspond with the Library’s open hours: Thursday 9:30–7:30, Friday and Saturday 9:30–5:30. Over 9,000 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 17, 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 other Friends activities.

Bag Sale
On Saturday, May 18, all shoppers can fill standard brown paper grocery bags with books and other media and pay just $10 per standard paper grocery bag full.

You can help
Volunteers make the sale possible. We need and appreciate your help with set-up (Monday, May 13 to Wednesday, May 15), the sale itself (Thursday, the 16th to Saturday, the 18th) to clean-up (the morning of Monday, May 20). 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.

On-going book sale in the Library

Friends are selling donated books in the Library all the time!  Look for a magenta book truck in the main entrance area.  You’ll find donated books in great condition with new stock on a regular basis.  Prices are marked on green stickers just inside the cover.  Most are going for $3.  Pay at the Circulation (or “checkout”) desk: cash or checks, please.three

As ever, all proceeds go to the Library!

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.

Where Friends’ Money Goes

As you can see, below, Friends of the Forest Grove Library has many activities to raise funds.  The Forest Grove Library Foundation’s Capital Campaign is one obvious recipient.  On what else does Friends’ spend their hard earned money?

Cultural programs
Friends have scheduled and sponsored a series of cultural programs, which include lectures and music, each winter and spring, for decades.  They have made Forest Grove’s contribution to the countywide Hearing Voices program and they fund the Adult Summer Reading Program.   

Forest Grove Conversations
Friends have financed and organized this annual topical program featuring panelists and a town hall discussion.

Teen programs including the Teen Summer Reading Program

Children’s programs
Since Friends started in 1973, they have been the major contributor to the Library’s children’s programs.  These include the annual B.E.A.R. Month, Dia de los Ninos and Summer Reading Program.

Volunteer recognition events, Wassail Party and equipment for the Library.

Capital campaigns
Friends of the Forest Grove Library was a major contributor to the Forest Grove Library Foundation’s million dollar capital campaign that remodeled the west end of the Library and will be an important contributor to the Foundation’s current $500,000 campaign for library furniture and equipment.