Two Weeks For the Price of One

    April 10^th through 16^th is National Volunteer Week. Our mother was always a volunteer, though we didn't attach any special significance to the word. It was just what she did. And when we were pressed into service, volunteered so-to-speak, we thought that we were doing what all offspring of volunteers were supposed to do. After a couple of years of weekly trips to the nearest library in the next town, our mother decided we needed a hometown library. One of my earliest memories of volunteering was sorting boxes of books in the large room above the Redman's Hall in the small town where I grew up. After that, Mom decided to start a volunteer ambulance core, and I was enlisted to draw a depiction of the half-scale Cadillac ambulance for the fund drive. I could go on and on with our mother's efforts, but the point of this tale was her simple definition of volunteering. "Doing something to make the world a better place."

    April 10^th through 16^th is also National Library Week. Libraries make the world a better place. The authors whose works of fiction and non-fiction entertain and inform strive to achieve this goal. A volunteer can help to make the library a better place. There are often singular or routine tasks that can be performed by volunteers, thus freeing up staff to accomplish other tasks. The Summer Reading Program at the Fort Plain Free Library is one program that particularly lends itself to this type of service. Should you be interested in volunteering in any capacity, stop in at the library and leave your name, phone number, what you would be interested in doing, and we will get back to you. You never know where a simple act of volunteerism might lead. When Mom and my sister became Candy Stripers at the hospital, my sister went on to become a nurse and hospice volunteer. After a career in business and years of volunteering, my youngest sister went all the way and started her own non-profit, staffed by volunteers. Mom's library efforts (now housed in our old eight-room schoolhouse) started me down the printed path. As for that Cadillac ambulance I drew, it eventually materialized and arrived just in time to deliver my firstborn!

    On Tuesday evening, April 26^th, from 6:00 – 8:00, The Fort Plain Free Library will host a program on Iris Folding. Participants will learn how to create beautiful, spiraling patterns using this simple technique. While this program is free, open to the public, and presented by volunteers, seating is limited.

For further information, please call the library at (518) 993-4646.