To The Editor:

Last week’s 50th annual book sale sponsored by the Friends of the C.H. Booth Library was the epitome of a successful community event: volunteers of every age working together to raise funds for our library by hosting a five-day book sale with more than 100,000 items donated by our neighbors to be purchased by patrons from near and far. Capping a challenging year for our group, its success was frankly even more impressive.

We are grateful to all of our volunteers, but especially to the approximately 65 that work year-round. This hardy group somehow managed to process and price donations for the sale despite working offsite for nine months due to construction work at the library. We thank all the donors who sought us out in that temporary location and made our sale possible.

We are now back in the library, busy processing donations for our year-round Little Book Store, December Holiday Sale and next July’s 51st annual book sale.

For this year’s sale, we were again fortunate to receive help from many additional volunteers, including high school and college students. We are especially appreciative of the excellent support from Coach Dan Farina and members of the Newtown High School football team, and all the young adults who have an abiding love for books, the library and providing community service.

Contributing to the community feel, Boy Scout Troop 70’s popular food tent fed hungry shoppers and volunteers on Saturday and Sunday.

As always, the library’s director, staff and trustees earn our daily appreciation for their support and stewardship of our magnificent town library.

The book sale generates a major portion of the Friends’ annual grant to the library for programs, acquisition of books and media and various special endeavors. The Friends is gratified to be able to continue providing this targeted support to benefit the entire community

Denise Kaiser

Book Sale Chairperson and Volunteer Liaison

Friends of the C.H. Booth Library