History

When the Orangevale Library received funds to expand and add staffing and hours in the summer of 2001, Orangevale Rotary recognized the need for ongoing community support and participation. The club spearheaded the revival of an inactive Friends group and provided leadership for that effort. Organized in November of 2001, this affiliate has increased from the initial group of ten to a membership of nearly 100. The Board meets every other month at the library. Orangevale Friends has held four “Bodacious Book Sales” and now sponsors mini book sales, in conjunction with the Girl Scouts, Boy Scouts, and other community youth volunteers, the first Saturday of each month. Together these fundraisers raise about $7500 annually. Funds are used to support children’s programs and to add materials to the library’s collection.

In addition to fundraising, the group has conducted membership promotion activities such as Valentine’s Week Welcome Receptions for library patrons. They also supported the grand opening of Starbuck’s, which gave customers a free coffee drink when they donated a book to the library. Orangevale Friends have also secured over 1000 books to add to the library’s collection from donations.

This affiliate’s greatest interest lies in promoting the development of a stand-alone library in Orangevale. To that end, the president has participated in planning with a working group of representatives from the Orangevale Recreation and Park District, Regional Transit, San Juan Unified School District and American River College partners, library and county staff. Once the working group started its planning, they conducted focus group interviews and held four meetings for community input in 2003. The resulting plan received the highest possible rating from the state Library Bond Act board members. However, the state money available for library projects in that round of funding was not sufficient to support all the high-ranking projects, so Orangevale was not funded. When Proposition 81 was placed on the ballot in 2006, having been passed by both the Assembly and Senate and signed by the governor, it was thought to be a slam-dunk and would have assured funding for Orangevale. When it failed, Orangevale’s permanent library plan was put on hold.

While we search for a $10 million funding source, the library authority and the county are negotiating with the owners of the space for lease next to the existing library to sign a five-year lease of 1200 square feet of space to expand from the current 3300 sq. ft. And soon patrons will see a new sign on the property north of the community center indicating the future site of the permanent library.

For the past few years, the affiliate has supported children’s programs at the library such as Puppet Art Theater, Magician Trevor Wyatt, Spy Makers, Clifford the Big Red Dog, Bosco the Magician, Effie Yeaw Nature Center, Mimo the Clown, Magician Richard Kowaleski, Noodles the Clown, Barbara Fall the Reptile Lady, Damento Juggling Club, Story Acting with Maduli, and Maidu People with Rick Vasquez.

This active organization has also developed monthly family programs and, starting in the summer of 2003, Friends introduced a “Reading Education Assistance Dogs” program which was very popular with children. Once every two weeks on Wednesday afternoons, children were invited to sign up to read aloud to a dog, an Inter Mountain Therapy animal trained for this purpose and accompanied by an adult certified in this teaching technique and in handling the dog.

Starting in the winter of 2003, the affiliate began implementation of Learning Out Loud, Pajama Story Time for three- to seven-year-olds, a program funded by a grant secured from Rotary International and Orangevale Rotary, featuring guest readers twice a month through May of 2004. In the fall of 2005, Story Time was moved to the first Saturday of each month at 9:30 am in conjunction with the mini book sales.
The Board enjoys the active participation of members of the Orangevale Rotary Club, a Boy Scout troop and four Girl Scout Troops, especially in the operation of Mini Book Sales. The Board focuses on maintaining a high profile positive image for library programs in the community and searches for partners in promoting literacy in the community.