Building Sedona's Future, One Reader at a Time

Heidi and Faith

As published in the Red Rock News

Library Giving Day is on April 7, and we’re excited to again participate in this national event celebrating libraries. This day gives us the opportunity to spread the word about what we’re doing to build community, and it gives you the opportunity to invest in your library while doubling your gift. Like last year, your gifts made on Library Giving Day will be matched, dollar for dollar, up to $20,000!
 
For Sedona Public Library, building community begins with our youngest readers, someone like our young patron Faith, who is the face of this year’s Library Giving Day campaign. Faith began coming to the Library when she was a baby, and according to her mom, Heidi, “She practically grew up at the Library.”
 
Faith worked her way through story time for babies, then toddlers, and then family story times. She has read her way through board books, picture books, and then early chapter books. Now she is reading chapter books, and she just received her first library card. Faith and her mom are thrilled. “Faith was raised on reading,” Heidi said. “I read to her from infancy, and now the tables are turned and she reads to me.”
 
Growing readers and supporting families are some of the many things we do that make your investment in Sedona Public Library a wise one. In fact, we’re also growing our space for reading and meeting, for programs, and more. You’ve told us for years that we need additional quiet areas and gathering spaces, and the COVID pandemic showed us the importance of making those spaces available outdoors. In response, we’re pleased to announce the launch of our new Library Patio project!
 
We’ve just kicked off this new initiative, and we’re in the very early stages. We’re busy imagining the space that will bring our services out into Arizona’s year-round sunshine and Sedona’s high desert climate. Imagine reading by a fire in the winter, watching a movie on a spring evening, celebrating a birthday on a summer morning, or hosting an autumn wedding  . . .  all at your library! The possibilities are endless, and if you notice library staff with a skip in their step these days, it’s because the winds of change have taken hold, and we’re thrilled.
 
Additionally, the Library Patio will set in stone, literally, the long-standing relationship between Sedona Public Library and the Friends of the Sedona Library. Soon the patio will connect our buildings on White Bear Road: the Library and the Friends’ Used Book Store. What a way to honor decades of partnership and support, by sealing it with a beautiful space to celebrate all things library, literacy, and community. We simply wouldn’t be the vital nonprofit organization that we are if it wasn’t for the Friends’ contributions for years. We also look to you for your reliable support.
 
We love celebrating your library on Library Giving Day, the same day that hundreds of communities across the U.S. are celebrating their libraries. We especially love that we can offer you the opportunity to double your gift on this important day. Your gifts will be matched, dollar for dollar, up to $20,000 thanks to our generous donor Gordon Reiter. He loved how his matching gift last year inspired so many of you. So he’s done it again. Thanks, Gordon! Last year, two additional stellar donors stepped up to increase the match as donations grew, ultimately to the tune of more than $54,000!
 
When you support your library, you guarantee the broad array of services and resources that we make available, for free. You secure the breadth of our collection, currently at over 84,000 items. And you support the cost to provide access to 1.2 million items within the Yavapai Library Network. Most recently, you give your vote of confidence to all of the adjustments and improvements we have made to our schedule, technology, programs, and services in order to protect you and yours during the current pandemic. And now you partner with us as we move forward in taking our services outdoors.
 
And, you support young readers like Faith. Faith feels at home at the Library. She said, “It makes me feel safe, welcomed and happy when I am here.” She loves the movies, the crafts, especially the yarn monsters, the books, and the people. When I asked which she liked the most, she said without blinking, “The books.” Thanks, Faith, for bringing us your enthusiastic, creative, book-loving energy.
 
On April 7, please consider making a gift to Sedona Public Library for Library Giving Day. It’s as easy as visiting sedonalibrary.org/donate. Or drop a check in the mail or give it to a staff member at our curbside holds service. Or, better yet, drop by—we’d love for you to visit. We’ll be here on April 7, 2021, Library Giving Day. Can’t wait to see you.

 Sedona Public Library
Column for March 5, 2021
Written by Anne Marie Mackler, Development Director 

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