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