{"id":19984,"date":"2019-11-07T15:21:00","date_gmt":"2019-11-07T22:21:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.skyhinews.com\/news\/friends-why-its-worth-the-upgrade\/"},"modified":"2019-11-07T15:21:00","modified_gmt":"2019-11-07T22:21:00","slug":"friends-why-its-worth-the-upgrade","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/krky\/local-news\/friends-why-its-worth-the-upgrade\/","title":{"rendered":"Friends: Why it\u2019s worth the upgrade"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Say one were buying an airline ticket. The Grand County Library District would be airfare, and the support provided by the Friends of Grand County Library, Inc. would upgrade from basic economy to economy-plus or business \u2014 extra leg room, free baggage, flexibility of travel \u2014 making travel more enhanced, more pleasurable.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m not far off using this transportation analogy to talk about the work of the Friends group in relation to our library district.<\/p>\n

Libraries, after all, can be considered vessels that transport you to a world of knowledge and learning. The Friends group funds for the district provides programming to help make that knowledge accessible, more enjoyable, and enhanced.<\/p>\n

The Lego programming; Babies, Books and Bag; 1000 Books Before Kindergarten; Summer Reading Program and its prizes for children, teens and adults; After-School Programming\u2014the Friends gives necessary funds for snacks, prizes and treats that accommodate programming at your library, as well as craft supplies, costumes, puppets, tot-sized furniture, shopping carts and even a popcorn machine.<\/p>\n

And the seed money for the now popular Access Grand, which allows library cardholders access to a variety of activities in Grand County and beyond, was Friends-contributed, thanks in part to a Friends pool of membership that has nearly tripled in size since the group first organized in 1984.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur fundraisers have grown from selling \u2018mud cups\u2019 and Rice Krispies Treats at the Fraser Rodeo to \u2018The Tops of the Rockies\u2019 at the Grand Lake Yacht Club,\u201d said Marla Gall, Friends president, who was one of the founding members of the organization. The Tops of the Rockies annual event she mentioned now is the group\u2019s most successful one-night fundraiser, which over the last three years has averaged $30,000 annually.<\/p>\n

The Friends group has ushered this mission for longer than three decades, promoting literacy and learning. Gall said she returned to the group\u2019s board about 15 years ago to help continue this important mission. \u201cI recognize how important libraries are to cultural growth and education,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Friends volunteer worker bees facilitate used-books collection at the local branches, plus a smattering of used-book sales throughout the county. Gently used books are sold on a continual basis at Sloopy\u2019s in Grand Lake, Grand Park Community Recreation building, Midtown Caf\u00e9 and Blue Water bakery as well as Grand Lake recreation building. And the Sky-Hi News building has served as a depository for donated books for many years.<\/p>\n

Other Friends fundraising events are an annual Progressive Dinner in the Fraser Valley (coming up on December 4) and a tea luncheon in Granby.<\/p>\n

And the Friends group is proud of its track record, consistently donating to the district more than 90 percent of its earnings. \u201cIt\u2019s a very good ratio for a nonprofit,\u201d Gall said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe add the bells and whistles,\u201d she said. \u201cWe\u2019ve engendered a great appreciation for the Library, and through our fundraisers and activities, the Friends have brought attention to the library and the importance of the library.\u201d<\/p>\n

To contact the Friends of Grand County Library or to become a member, visit\u202ffriendsofgrandcountylibrary.org or leave a note at any library branch in Grand County.<\/p>\n

via:: Sky-Hi News<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Say one were buying an airline ticket. The Grand County Library District would be airfare, and the support provided by the Friends of Grand County Library, Inc. would upgrade from basic economy to economy-plus or business \u2014 extra leg room, free baggage, flexibility of travel \u2014 making travel more enhanced, more pleasurable. I\u2019m not far […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[56],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-19984","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-local-news"},"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-15 16:26:19","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KRKY Ski Country","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/krky","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/krky\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19984","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/krky\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/krky\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/krky\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/krky\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19984"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/krky\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19984\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/krky\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19984"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/krky\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19984"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/krky\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19984"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}