Lily's Garden Shop

Here is Lilly the Llama tending her garden store where she sells flowers and vegetables and herbs in order to help raise money for the library.  Her trusty assistants are four pygmy angora goats.  You can find the stand and (inside the fence) Lilly and the goats at 713 Marine Drive.  This past weekend, Lilly raised $30!  At that rate, we might have to start a program to teach them all to read, at the very least.  Thanks to Heidi Baxter for this project.

Getting a Little Help

My 23-year-old granddaughter graduated with honors from UC Berkeley last month.  Pause for applause for her and for those who paid her tuition.  She is a person who--since she first realized she actually was alive--has always wanted to understand how life and the world works.  I was thinking of her the other day, remembering a conversation we had when she was about 4.  She was visiting us in Los Angeles and Ed had promised to do something particular with her when he got home from work at the end of the day.  Five o'clock came and went and right before six, she came to me with a worried look on her face.  She reminded me that Grandpa Ed had promised to do whatever it was when he got home from work and he got home from work at five, but now it was almost six.  What did I think about this?

"Oh," I replied, in the tiresome manner of adults everywhere, "He'll be here soon, I imagine.  Just be patient."

She looked at me with concern and, in the way of a child experienced in preschool, said, "I guess he hasn't got his work done.  Is he," and here her voice became absolutely pained, "maybe a little....slow?  Or, maybe nobody helped him with his work?"

Fortunately, he showed up within minutes and we never had to seriously face whether he might be "a little slow" or without friends to help him.

I was thinking about this because the "Stand and Be Counted" totals are indeed a little slow coming in, although we do have 170 as of today and after almost 6 weeks.  But still.  We are a community of 1300 people/permanent residents and at least 800 of those adults are surely around here in June.  And surely almost every one of them could afford to contribute $20 to a new library.  And then, while I was thinking this, Hosanna!, came into my hands an envelope with a check for $140.  Pat and Michael Birchall, who live here, had sent their $40 in the first week of May.  Now, they had rounded up 7 twenties from extended family members in Texas and Oklahoma who, Pat says, were happy to be helping build a library up here, because, "everybody needs a good library and sometimes they also need a little help to get there."  A couple of brothers-in-law are yet to be heard from, says Pat, but they'll come around eventually.

As will all of us, I imagine.  Because, why wouldn't we?

Catching Up

I ran into Maureen Meikle in the grocery store today and she asked me how we are doing with the fundraising.  And I figure if Maureen doesn't already know, I must be remiss in getting some of the social networking done in a timely fashion.  So here I am.

First of all, we are now just short of $200,000 (specifically $4k short).  But that four thousand will be coming in from here and there within the month, I expect, as we have several requests out.

Second of all, we have about 160 people who have signed up for the "Stand and Be Counted: Give $20 to the New Library."  That's fewer than we had hoped, but we are pretty good hopers here at fundraising central and by extending it throughout the summer we have given our hopes new hope.  The 160 people have contributed (with the matching funds) $6,400, which is very, very nice to have.  All their names have been entered into the Donation Book of Record.

Third of all, the red quilt for which we have been selling $25 raffle quilts has been won. After selling 37 of 40 tickets, we decided it was time to end the suspense.  We raised $925 and the quilt was won by Mary Sullivan of East Vancouver.  She bought the winning ticket at the recorder concert at Trinity Lutheran Church a few weeks ago.  Rhiannon Allen and Arthur Reber (who were conflict free) presided over the identification of the winning ticket.  There was a second (unadvertised) prize: a couch pillow whose cover was pieced and quilted in the same style as the quilt (but blue instead of red) and it was won by Meg Olson, intrepid newspaper reporter and Mom from right here in Point Roberts.  Here's a picture of Meg and we'll have a picture of Mary after she gets down here to pick up the quilt, we think this weekend.  Our great thanks to everyone who bought tickets.  If it were in my power to have had a quilt for each of them, I surely would have arranged it.


Fourth of all, we are hoping to get the fabulous Tor Baxter-Judson Meraw (and various colleagues)'s book sculpture and its accompanying sign for tracking our fundraising progress in place toward the end of the month.  The "place" for the sign will be on the front of the Julius Firehall; the sculpture will be in front of the Julius Firehall.

Fifth of all, for those of you who are keeping up with the gas station saga: As you may recall, we have received donations for Can-Am ($10,000) and from the Texaco and Chevron stations ($1,000 each).  We met with the Shell station owner this past week and he has pledged at least $1,000 this summer.  And we received a phone call from the USA station management yesterday saying that they had just received our May 18 letter and would be getting back to us.  That's progress and we thank all the station owners for their contributions!

Sixth of all, we will be making a regular appearance at the Saturday Market starting June 22 where we will hope you can join us to decorate and sign with your own name a "Piece of the Library" prayer flag to fly on the side  of the Julius Firehall.  This will involve a $5 donation (many hours and yards of fabric go into making all these flags!), and we hope you and your children and their children will all join in with us to get those prayers and all those flag pieces creating the kind of environment that will enable us to get to our next goal by the end of the year.  That goal would be $300,000.  Help!  In every sense of the word!

Have a good weekend!  ...Judy Ross for The Friends of the P.R. Library

Denis Horgan, Vice President and General Manager of Westshore Terminals, came down to Point Roberts on May 23, 2013, with a big check in his pocket for the new library building fund.  Here he presents the $10,000 check to members of the fund raising committee: Louise Cassidy, Judy Ross, Margot Griffeths, and Mark Robbins.

Horgan said that he sees Point Roberts and Delta as both part of the same community, and that he welcomes the chance to help build a new library for the Point.  In light of shared history, geography, and activities, the international boundary is, in his view, just a procedural hurdle, not a real divider.  He also acknowledged that coal dust from the Terminal pays no attention to the border.  The Terminal is just completing a $8.5 million dollar upgrade to their dust control system, which should be in operation sometime this month.  "Hope it works," he said.

Libraries in the Future

Sometimes, when I am talking to people about donating to the new library, an individual will say, "Well, we don't really use the library; we just download the books we need.  And, anyway, we won't really need libraries 20 or 30 years from now."  There are a lot of things one can say to counter such views, not least that everybody can't just download whatever they need.  They may not have the money, or the equipment, or the skill to take that route.  They may have 3 or 4 kids who are interested in having dozens of books each.  It is really not uncommon in our own library to see a family checking out 15 or 20 books for the kids.  And it is certainly not uncommon to see a librarian helping someone learn how to download a library e-book or helping them to use the computers in the library that are available for public use.

And given current trends, it looks like ours will continue to be a society in which many people will continue to need help in these ways.  Mark Robbins recently brought an article to my attention.  So if you are one of the people who think we aren't going to need libraries in the future, you might want to read it and consider another view.

http://blogs.kqed.org/mindshift/2013/05/in-the-digital-age-what-becomes-of-the-library/


--Judy Ross, for FOPRL

Standing Up Some More

We have, currently, 135 people who have contributed $20 each to the "Stand and Be Counted: $20 for the New Library" campaign.  Great, but not great enough, so we've talked to the donor who is providing the matching gift, and he is willing to continue it throughout the summer.  It's very good to have over $5,500 total from this effort over the past four weeks, but so much better to have a $40,000 total, which we would have from 1,000 such donation.

SO, if you haven't got yourself listed and with an "I Gave" button, the library and Sterling Bank are still the places to go.  Help make those numbers rise and help show that you support this new library!  We'll be at the Saturday Market beginning June 21, and you can get your buttons from us there, too.  As well as "Piece of the library" Prayer Flags.

What are our current total donations with their attached matching funds?  Just under $195,000.  Someone out there with a spare $5,000 just to get that total evened out nicely?  We're expecting our outdoor donation measuring device to be completed mid-June: you'll want to look for it in and on the front of the Julius Firehall.

Good News! And Money!

Several pieces of good news on the new library front:

1.  We have 95 people who have Stood and Been Counted!  (That's $1900 and then, doubled with the matching gift, it's $3,800.)  It's  still a long way from 1,000, but we are working to contact more people directly which is the way it most successfully happens.  We'll have someone at the used book and new plant sale this coming Saturday (18th May) at the Community Center (10-2) and hope to raise that number.  You, too, can help by encouraging friends and neighbors and even family to be sure to get to Sterling Bank or the library to make the donation, and then get the button.  Those who are away can mail a check (made out to FOPRL) and mail it to FOPRL, Box 970, PR, WA 98281 and we'll put an "I Gave" button on reserve for them for when they do get back to the Point.

One person wrote me that, upon hearing of the need for more $20's, she had written her sisters-in-law and her adult children, urging them to get the money to her and she would collect their buttons for them.  That's participation!  Twenty for a library is so little for so much!

2.  The past two weeks, in addition to the $3,800 from the Stand and Be Counted event, we have received a generous $3,000 donation from a local resident, and a $10,000 donation from Westshore Terminals.  All $10,000 donations will be doubled (up to $100,000) and this is our fifth such donation this year.  Sooo, in a very short space of time, our donation totals are up almost $27,000, to an overall total of $194,000.  The $10,000 donations do not need to be from individuals, but could be from a group (homeowners association? extended family? community organization?) and can include previous donations (although only new money is matched).  Thus, if someone/some group previously gave $5,000 and now gave another $5,000, the new $5,000 would be matched and the giver would be included in the Founders' Circle for permanent recognition.

3.  We are nearing the end of the raffle ticket sales for the "Improvisations in Red" quilt.  We are selling only 40 tickets total on this exotic quilt and there are currently only 10 tickets left.  We'll be doing the drawing by the end of the month in any case.  The quilt (for your viewing pleasure) will be on display at the Community Center this Saturday during the used book sale (10-2) and tickets will be available.  Tickets are $25.  It's a one-of-a-kind piece.

4.  In June, we'll be working on "Piece" of the Library Prayer Flags.  You can get a flag for a $5 donation ($2 for kids 12 and under), you can decorate it and then sign your name on it, and we will display them all throughout the summer on the big wall of the soon-to-be new library.  Fly high those flags!  Many of them!

5.  If you have any questions about any of this, write me at judyross@outlook.com.

Happy late spring early summer to you all,
Judy Ross
for The Friends of the Point Roberts Library