Here We Go

Here we go, right into 2013, our second year of fundraising.   Here is the 'Showers of Gold' quilt with its current 88 squares, each representing $1,000 of donations; which is about 2 squares short of the money we have actually raised.  Which is to say that we now have donations totalling $90,000, in addition to another $35,000 of pledges for 2013.  It's a great start for a big sum, but this second year will be even more critical for the success of this project.

Occasionally, I am just focused on the actual number of dollars that need to be raised, but more often I am thinking of and vizualizing the actual building and the actual space that will be there for all our eyes to see and all our selves to use.  I imagine the new kids' room, over three times as large as the current kids' room, opening onto an additional, usable outdoor area.  It won't be dark or gloomy as the current room is, but filled with light and kids, chairs and tables, including a table of computers for them to use; and books, of course, still many books.  There will be kids in this library for decades to come.  And we will all have worked to make it a better place for them to learn, to discover books, to feel the freedom that using a library easily can bring to a person.

I see the space for adults to sit and read in a comfortable and convenient chair, with light pouring in and the outside trees clearly visible, bringing the Point Roberts we most love into the library that we also love dearly.  I see computers and computer tables for them, too, and still books that wash in and wash out over the year.  Always enough books in sight and multi-thousands more on their way from the County's great resources.

And all this space and equipment will be shiny and new.  We will have time to ease it in and make it our own, but at the beginning, it will just be there ready for us to incorporate it into our unusual little community.  A community project for the community that we are and for the community that we will be for many years to come.

Everyone benefits from something new, now and then.  We have had this library for over 65 years.  The old, familiar and friendly, is good too, but we have plenty of that around.  We are over ten years late in getting a millenial library, but we can still have it if we join together to make it happen.  We need everyone to be included, we need everyone to join all those who are already working to make this happen.  We need all the Friends of the Library to reach out so that everyone who lives here, everyone who uses the library, everyone who uses Point Roberts regularly becomes a friend of the library by supporting this new library.

Thanks to everyone who has donated time and energy and dollars this past year: because of you, we are closer to having a new library.  We look forward to adding to that number this year, as more people begin to see that new library as a part of their own future and add their names to the 'Book of Donors.'  Be a part of history!  And a very good new year to you all.

--Judy Ross, for The Friends of the Point Roberts Library