JeNel Allen-Barth

Our Scholastic Book Fair was held Monday, March 9^th through Saturday, March 14^th.  After weeks of planning, scheduling volunteers and publicity, we can now say that it was a great success.

This year, our Book Fair was “manned” through a combination of volunteers and employees.  I couldn’t have done it without all of these wonderful people!  Hailey Harbour, Tori Brown, Mindi Blizek, Mike Barth, Julianna Barth, Miles Starr, Jeff Livingston, Shawn Dekker, Dana Moritz, Nicole Cox, Lottie Wilson, Mary Beth Thomas, Lois Hays, Deanna Allen and Winona Whitaker all volunteered their time to set up, work and tear down the fair.  Library Employees Jami Livingston, Beth Burgin, Theresa Liford and Pam Reed also put in time to help the project run smoothly.  Theresa and Pam were especially important in keeping the fair room supervised and assisting volunteers as they came in to work throughout the week.  I am so grateful for all of their help.  Thank you so much!

Now to the results of our efforts!  When you purchase items through the Scholastic Book Fair, the Drake Public Library receives 40% of each purchase in Scholastic Dollars.  At the conclusion of this year’s book fair, we totaled $1,717.41 in sales.  After purchasing what was left from our wish list book selections, this brought our Scholastic Dollars earnings to $579.57!  Speaking of our “wish list selections”, patrons were especially generous this year in purchasing books that I had selected for our wish list and donating them back to us.  31 books were purchased as a donation to us!  More might come back to us through our online book fair that will continue through March 24^th. The link is on our website as well as the Drake Public Library and Drake Public Library Kids Facebook pages.   These books came directly to us and they still counted toward our Scholastic Dollars earnings.  Pretty neat!

Storytime featuring books from the Scholastic Book Fair.

This year, Scholastic also sent a “gift basket” of free books, valued at $100, for us to use as prizes for our summer reading program.  They also let us pick out any of the leftover posters from the fair display to keep for our library, at no cost.  This is a pretty nice gift from our Scholastic friends.

Scholastic Dollars allow me to purchase books, bookmarks, posters and program supplies through the online resource catalog, at no cost to the library.  Even shipping is free. I have used our Scholastic Dollars to replace damaged books, update Children’s Library decorations and even provide interactive items (like our new hand held white boards and our book character plush dolls) for our program activities.  I also purchased books for our very popular Toddler Time group participants.  Every child that attended Toddler Time during the Book Fair was able to choose a book from the fair display to take home with them for free.  It’s a gift that makes them smile with pride, as they hold their brand new book.  And really, isn’t that what this is all about?  It was a joy to see the excitement that our kids and families have for reading and for supporting the Drake Public Library!

Books donated to the Drake Library by shoppers at the Scholastic Book Fair