Some people celebrate their 40th birthday with a wild Caribbean getaway. Others mark the occasion by bingeing on Haagen Daas and crying themselves to sleep.
But for the Friends of the Alamance County Public Libraries, the Big 4-0 has been all about doing what they’ve done all along – namely, selling books to raise funds for the county’s library system.
Debbie Mann, the publicity chair for this year’s spring book sale, concedes that won’t be any anniversary hoopla during this upcoming event, which runs from March 7 through March 16.
“This is our 40th anniversary,” Mann explained in an interview last this week. “But the sale is just our spring book sale.”
[Story continues below photos.]
The Friends have been holding these seasonal sales ever since they conducted their first fundraiser nine months after they incorporated in January of 1985. This outdoor bazaar, which took place outside the K-Mart department store along Maple Avenue in Burlington, was a rather modest affair, according to Barbara Roberts, a long-time volunteer with this nonprofit organization.
“It was just boxes on the sidewalk,” Roberts recalled. “So, that’s how far we’ve come.”
In recent years, the Friends have kept shop in the basement of Burlington’s May Memorial Library, which is currently jam-packed with books, DVDs, and other materials in anticipation of next week’s spring sale. This season’s stock includes the usual complement of fiction, nonfiction, classics, children’s books, book club selections, and recent releases. Also on offer are some newly-donated collections, including a massive trove of Navy-themed tomes and old college yearbooks from Duke, UNC, and other North Carolina schools – some of which date back more than a century.
As always, the object of next week’s book sale will be to raise funds for Alamance County’s public libraries. Mann noted that previous sales have been a huge boon to these libraries – with the cumulative value of the group’s contributions having passed the million-dollar mark in 2016. She added that the Friends and their supporters can rest easy knowing that very little of this money has gone into the organization’s own operations.
“Ninety-seven percent of everything we raise goes into collections, programming, and promoting literacy in Alamance County,” she said.
This year’s spring sale will kick off at 12:00 noon on Friday, March 7 with a special “members only” promotion. Although this pre-sale is restricted to dues-paying members, memberships will be available at the door for those who want first crack at the merchandise.
The sale opens to the general public on Saturday, March 8 and runs through Sunday, March 16.
