Donations help Friends help library

Thanksgiving may have passed, but it’s never too late to be thankful for everything you have.

Here at the library, we’re thankful for our wonderful and supportive community, and the incredibly selfless and benevolent souls who volunteer their time, their passion, and their money for the betterment of the library for everyone.

You might recognize the Friends of the Library from their monthly book sales — their next one is on Saturday, Dec. 3 at 10 a.m. The library staff knows them from their incredible contributions to the library in every sense of the word.

The Friends spend more than a few hours once a month helping the library - they spend an immense amount of time planning events, organizing items for the monthly sale and fundraising for the library. Many Friends also volunteer even more of their time to help shelve and organize materials, which helps the staff tremendously. They even graciously donated flight controls for the library’s virtual reality flight simulator, which has helped people quite literally climb to new heights in life.

They do all of this and ask for nothing in return; all they want is to see the library be the very best it can be, and to serve the community to its fullest potential. Our library staff is indescribably thankful for this support, and whether or not the community realizes it, the library would not be what it is without the support of the Friends of the Library.

This year, the Friends are offering to match the community’s donations to the library, up to a maximum total of $5,000 by the end of the year! That means that for every dollar you donate, the Friends will donate an equal amount, until the community collectively hits that $5,000 goal - that’s a whopping $10,000 total that goes towards enriching the library.

This money goes into building and maintaining library collections, funding programs for childhood and adult literacy, lifelong education for the community, and more. Every dollar donated is returned back to the community in tangible ways - even if you don’t personally use the library, you are connected to someone who has benefited from library services at some point in their life.

What’s more, donating to the library benefits you directly, offering you a tax credit for 50% of your donation up to $1,000 individually, or $2,000 when filing jointly - that means you get up to a $500 tax break when filing solo, or up to $1000 when filing jointly. This only applies to monetary donations - materials donations are categorized differently by the state, and you’d have to consult a tax professional about that.

We are so thankful for the Friends of the Library and everything they do for this library and the community at large. The staff sees everything you do here, and we appreciate it very much. Thank you.

Brenden Bobby can be reached at the East Bonner County Library, 1407 Cedar St., Sandpoint; by phone at 208-263-6930; or by email at brenden@ebonnerlibrary.org