What’s Happening with Friends!

Upcoming Event

We have several meetings that Friends and the public are welcome to attend.  The Friends leadership team will meet Monday, November 4 and Monday, December 2 at 6 pm in the library community room. This is a fantastic way to learn about upcoming programs and behind-the-scenes activities. Our next General Membership Meeting will be Monday, January 9.  More information to come about the General Membership Meeting but be sure to mark your calendar now! 

Not a friend yet? Click here to fill out the membership form.

What We’ve Been Up To

We held our third General Membership Meeting on October 10. With an improvised drum roll and lots of cheering, we shared that Cultivate Solar donated $10,000 to the Friends of Dunlap Public Library.  Thanks to this generous donation, we immediately met the goal set by Friends attending the July General Membership Meeting and donated funds to the library to purchase two Tonie Boxes, a screen-free audio player that plays songs and stories and encourages listeners to use their imagination, and an annual subscription that will provide several new Tonies, the audio component, for the library.   Woo-hoo! 

In addition to that exciting news, we discussed a new activity to coordinate with the library’s upcoming programming theme in January and February.   Volunteers are needed!  Contact us at friends@dunlaplibrary.org for more information.  

With the help of our friends at the library, we introduced two new programs that will be part of our General Membership Meetings: “Behind the Scenes” and “First Look Books”.   

• “Behind the Scenes” provides a brief overview of a topic about our library.  We learned about how the library selects new books and what happens when the new books arrive at the library. 

•  “First Look Books” are advanced reader copies of books yet to be published. Members attending the meeting had the first opportunity to review and borrow “First Look Books”. These books are now available for all Friends of Dunlap Public Library to borrow. Look for the display in the small bookcase at one end of the Circulation Desk.   

View the meeting slide show and read the minutes for more information. 

We celebrated National Friends of Libraries Week October 20-26.  Library patrons entered a raffle to win a National Friends of Libraries tote bag and a mug. Other Friends freebies were available to take home. 

Friends by the Numbers

$12,520 Total monies raised from fund raising, donations, and dues 

400 Popsicles donated for the summer foam party 

44 Active members 

•  12 – number of Friends living outside Dunlap 
•  4,433 – miles away from Dunlap for the Friend living the furthest away, we have our first international Friend!  

10 Gifts given to the library 

•  5 children’s puzzles 
• 2 Tonie Boxes and an annual subscription for Tonies
•  2 charging stations 
•  1 annual subscription to Illinois Libraries Present

3 General membership meetings 

1 Booksale