May 2008 Edition Friends Web Site
–www.friendsofserl.org
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A
note from the president……
Our May
meeting was well attended and I thank all of you who were there. The election results are: one year term:
Donna Petersen, President; and Aida Woodward, Store Representative. Two year term: Lynda Swaney,
Vice-president; Ann Weston, Secretary; and Al Petersen, Treasurer; and the
following two-year term board members: Laura Luke, Sue Kolnitys,
Judy Gwynn and Gary Willman. Gary has already volunteered to take care of
our publicity. I am looking forward to
another great year.
Thank
you to our retiring board, Loretta Wellman who has served as our Vice-president
and Dennis Swaney who served as our Treasurer and the
At-Large Board Members Dot Beer, Joan Elia and Ruth
Lawler. These volunteers deserve special
thanks as they were the first board members under the new bylaws and they did
incur some difficult situations.
Anytime
you change something you can expect a few problems. With that in mind, I would
like to have three volunteers to look at the Bylaws sections that caused some
questions or need clarification. Please
call me at 480-840-1318 if you are interested.
I would like to have the changes and clarifications ready to send to
members before the September meeting.
The
estimated revenue and expenditures for 2008-2009 was approved at the May
meeting. For a detailed copy, stop by
the Friends bookstore or call Dennis Swaney at
480-988-9189.
After
four years as Membership Chairperson, Barbara Dawson has resigned. I want to thank Barbara for her work in
streamlining the process and always having everything ready for our membership. Terry Pullins, a
Friday bookstore volunteer has graciously accepted the position. The winner of the membership incentive
contest, the book on the History of Gilbert was Sue Kolnitys.
A
heartfelt thank you goes out to Pat Wolcott.
She noticed the prints of Route 66 Arizona 1953 and Raising
of the Flag at Iwo Jima that the Friends donated to be displayed in the library for perpetuity
were missing. They were located in
storage at the Town of Gilbert waiting for funds to repair the backs. Friends will pay to have the backs repaired
so they may be returned to the Library.
Pat also assumed the job of organizing our history files into yearly
books. A much appreciated task.
As of
July 1st, Friends will start receiving all of the library
discards. This has been an issue for a
long time and we appreciate the Maricopa Administration’s decision. Look for a July sale!
We have
once again applied for the Books for Arizona Libraries grant. This year I have asked for the full
$2,000. This grant allows small
libraries and schools to shop our store or request books to mailed
and we recoup the cost of the books and postage.
Have a
safe summer, see you in the store.
Donna
Petersen, President
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Summer Reading Has Begun!
For
those of us at the Southeast Regional Library, summer began on May 27th
with our “Summer Reading Program”.
Maricopa County Library District puts on a fantastic program for
everyone from birth to adulthood! We
hope that you will bring the whole family to one of our library locations and
participate in this annual event. For
more information on our Summer Reading Programs, please visit our website (http://mcldaz.org/summer/).
In
order to kick-off our annual Summer Reading Program, our Youth Services
department presented an original puppet show, based on the beloved characters
of Eric Carle. In all, over 500 people
attended the puppet show!
For a
list of all the other exciting events happening at the Southeast Regional
Library, please see our online events calendar (http://libcat.mcldaz.org/evanced/lib/eventcalendar.asp).
I’d
like to extend my thanks to the Friends of the Southeast Regional Library for
their generous donations that help make these events possible at the Southeast
Regional Library!
Andrew Chanse
Branch Manager, Southeast
Regional Library
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Five Gilbert High School
Students Earn $1,000 Scholarships
Five
Gilbert Public High School students received Reggie Auclair
scholarships at a reception held at the SE Regional Library on Saturday, May 10th.
The $1,000 scholarships given by the Friends of the Library were based on
volunteerism during the student’s high school years.
The
recipients were Lisa Deng, Gilbert High School; Elisa Bresadola,
Gilbert High School; Justin Yeh, Mesquite High
School; Jacqueline Heeman, Desert Ridge High School;
and Madeleine Bailey, Desert Ridge High School.
These
students will use these scholarships toward furthering their education
according to Scholarship Chairperson Judy Gwynn.
Congratulations
to all of these wonderful students!
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FRIENDS PLACE 2007/2008 REPORT
Friends
Place thanks you for another successful year!
Our third year in a row of over $50,000 earnings. To help accomplish this, 33 store and several
outreach volunteers have given more than 4,400 hours of their time.
Our projected
income once again has surpassed our budgeted amount. As of April 27, 2008 we have earned over
$65,000 for the fiscal year. Our year ends June 30th giving Friends
the potential of several thousand more.
If you would like to see where the money goes, you may request a
complete 2007/2008 budget via email by calling Dennis Swaney
at 480-988-9189. We also try to have
copies in the bookstore.
In
keeping with our Mission Statement of promoting literacy in children, our
organization gave grants to six Gilbert and three Mesa elementary schools
totaling $22,500. This was money that
was generated far beyond our 2007/2008 budget.
The schools used the money to update or expand their school libraries
and were immensely grateful.
The
$1,500 grant from Books for Arizona Libraries (BAZL) program which helps to
provide books to libraries and non-profits and for us to recover the costs was
used up by January. The BAZL grant has
given Friends the knowledge to help get books to others in need, even when the
funds are gone.
Here
are a few examples of how we assisted other communities beyond our grant
money: We recently gave Maricopa High
School a set of large print encyclopedias for their special needs students; Higley Elementary was given several boxes of old Gilbert
Library children’s books for lending in the classroom; The Pima Medical
Institute Nursing program for low and no-income families got books for adults
and children to read in their waiting room. Friends of SERL have applied for
the full $2,000 grant and we shall continue to help as we can.
We have
cleared up the issue of our unused budget for 2007/2008 regarding Maricopa
County for the SE Regional Library.
Andrew Chanse, the new SERL manager, who has
replaced Sandy Edwards, has given us a list of approved items by Maricopa
County Administers for the remaining $20,000.
Friends are happy to have this issue resolved and we look forward to
many cooperative years in the future. Maricopa
County Administers have also agreed to give us all discards from our library
starting in July. No can we get the
vending machine area?
We
welcomed the Perry Library as part of our Gilbert Friends late last year. Being new they were not a part of our budget,
but we were able to help with two benches for their outside entry for use by
their patrons. The Town of Gilbert
installed them for us. Thank you! We
also have given them bottled water service, which they all enjoy. Friends will include them in our budget for
the 2008/2009 year. The donations from
Perry Library have been many and outstanding.
Our
five recipients of the $1,000 scholarship for the Gilbert high schools were
among 11 applicants. This community
program is in its third year and we will be fine tuning it as we have a new
Chairperson, Judy Gwynn who has suggested some changes.
We no
longer put our discarded hardback and paperback books in the recycle or
dumpster. Ed VanWinkle,
the Maricopa County prison librarian, picks up all of our discards. These books are taken to the Phoenix Friends
who glean through them and what they can’t sell they ship to be mulched. The prison library gets the funds from the
mulched product. Ed also brings us
children’s books and videos that are among donations he receives from the
community and the Phoenix Friends.
I hope
you, as a member, are seeing the many pluses that have been generated by
Friends of the Southeast and Perry libraries.
Your membership is valuable to us and we hope to you. The Town of Gilbert gets a huge thank you for
the store space and the community for their generous donations. Visit us often
and remember to thank the volunteers in our Friends Place bookstore.
Donna
Petersen, President
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Friends Place Bookstore
Volunteers Are Special People!
And we
thought you ought to know about them!
One of them is a young lady that has volunteered for the past year and a
half. Not only does she do a wonderful job getting the books in order and
marked she is such a help to the other young people that work with her in the
bookstore. This young lady has just
graduated from Tempe High School and we want to wish her congratulations and
the best of luck in her future endeavors!
This is
just one example of the dedicated young people that have been helping on
Saturday afternoons. Some of them have
been working in the bookstore for several years and are always delighted to be
there.
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Friends Add Twelve New Members
During May!
May was
a busy month for the Friends. Added to
our ever increasing roster were 10 folks from Gilbert including Malinda Walls,
James King, Stephanie Cox, Glenn Gwynn, Jackie Walsh, Scott Spadafore,
Sally Wells, Julie Young and John and MaryEllen DeBernardo. From
Chandler is Kay Cox (a former member from many years ago) and from Mesa is Amy
Gonzales. Welcome to all of you!
And we
welcome Terry Pullins who is the new Membership
Chairperson to replace Barbara Dawson who handled this job for four years!
For
more information on becoming a member of the Friends contact Terry at tpullins@cox.net or stop by the Friends
Place and pick up an application.
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We Need Your Help in Keeping Up
Our History!
Now
that the Friends past history has been organized we would like to keep it
up. You can help by saving any article
about the Friends (or the SE Regional Library) that you see in the local
papers, etc. and bring it in to the Friends Place bookstore. There will be a folder that these articles
will be put in and then added to one of the Friends books. You could even do better! We would really
like to have an official Historian whose job responsibility would simply be
“keeping up our history”. There’s very
little time involved and it is a fun job (I just finished bringing the
‘history’ up-to-date). It probably should be someone who lives in Gilbert. So, if you’d like to help, please call Donna
Petersen at 480-840-1318 or e-mail her to donna7al4petersen@cox.net.
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Many
Friends Volunteered at the Annual Gilbert Global Festival
The
annual Gilbert Global Festival was held April 12 at the Gilbert Civic
Center. As usual, the Friends of the SE
Regional Library had a booth to display books and information about the Friends
organization. In addition, there were
all kinds of materials for the children to make bookmarks. Those who came out to help Barbara Dawson who
was Chairperson for the Friends participation for this event were Gary Willman, Ruth Lawler, LaVerne
Kolling. Nora Dunn, Pat Wolcott, Connie Dempster and Blair Revak and her
granddaughter. Thanks for all those who
helped!
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Tutor Training Takes a Vacation
Kay
Azuma of the Mesa Laubach Literacy Council and
Friends Literacy Chairperson advises that there is no tutor training scheduled
for the summer months. However, she
would be happy to send out information about the literacy program to any
interested volunteer. Give her a call at 480-813-4564 or e-mail her to mesaliteracy@yahoo.com .
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Your officers are:
President:
Donna
Petersen
Vice-president:
Lynda Swaney
Treasurer:
Al Petersen
Secretary:
Ann Weston
At Large Board Members: Judy Gwynn, Sue Kolnitys, Laura Luke, Gary Willman,
Aida Woodward
Committee Chairs:
Membership: Terry Pullins
Newsletter: Pat
Wolcott
Adult Literacy: Kay
Azuma
Publicity: Gary Willman
Scholarship: Judy
Gwynn
Store Representative: Aida
Woodward
Historian: open
Friends Place Bookstore (480-539-5128)