Last week, the Friends of the Athens-Clarke County Library hosted their summer Friends’ Book Sale. The purpose of the sale is to raise money for the library, and this summer our goal was $12,000. Most books sold for 50 cents–$2, so that means we needed to sell a lot of books to reach our goal. As it turns out, thanks to tremendous community support, the Friends raised almost $21,000. Money raised by the Friends is used to support many library programs, such as the Summer Reading Program for children, the 1,000 Books Before Kindergarten program, Chess Club and the Heritage Room, to name just a few.  

There were 19,000 books at the sale, almost all donated by folks in our community. The sale attracted the usual book lovers who cannot get enough science fiction books, cook books or mysteries, and even a few book sellers who were hoping to find a treasure or two. It was very busy all three days of the sale, especially Saturday, the last day, when you could buy a large grocery bag of books full to overflowing for $10. It just never slowed down! Some of my favorite shoppers on Saturday were a new 4th grade teacher buying books to set up her very own classroom library; a daughter buying large print books and “sweet” romances for her mother’s nursing home because “they can never get enough;” a retiree buying children’s books for local emergency room waiting areas; and a mom buying bags of books for a local daycare center that recently lost most of their books when a tree fell on their roof.  

To me, the book sale really feels like a celebration of community, and I would like to thank the community for helping to make the Friends’ Book Sale such a wonderful celebration. Thank you, Athens, for donating so many books, for putting up fliers or yard signs, and for running notices in the paper. Many thanks for the hundreds and hundreds of volunteer hours it took to put on the book sale, and a special thank you to everyone who came out and bought lots and lots of books.   

Now we begin again as we collect books for our spring sale coming up in March.

Jean Campbell is chairperson of the Friends of the Library Book Sale Committee.