It's time to make friends for the library

Four-year-old Scarlett Menard looked at the dog puppet she made out of a brown paper bag and construction paper and slipped it over her hand to show her mother, Sonya Menard.

The pair had just finished attending story time Jan. 2 at the Braden River Library, where they heard the stories “Oh No, George!” and “Walk the Dog.”

Menard, a stay-at-home mom, takes Scarlett to Manatee County libraries at least once a week and can’t wait until there is one closer to their Central Park community.

“Everybody I’ve ever spoken to in Lakewood Ranch wants a library there,” Menard said. “When I was growing up, I would hang out at

the library. It was in walking distance.”

Menard is working with Bridgewater resident Sue Ann Miller to form a new Friends of the Library group to be tasked with fundraising for the future needs of a Manatee County public library in East County. Manatee County officials began meeting with East County residents about a year ago concerning a new library, and Menard and Miller are taking the effort a step further. Manatee County likely won’t construct a facility for two to five years.

The group will hold its first informational meeting Jan. 16 at Lakewood Ranch Town Hall. The first step is forming a steering committee.

“The county’s vision is not just books. It’s a community center,” Miller said of the future East County library. “They are continuing learning centers for people of all ages.”

Miller said she’s looking for volunteers committed to seeing the group form. Steering committee members who have experience in nonprofit law, marketing, grant writing, fundraising and other pertinent topics will be important as the group establishes its bylaws and modes of operation.

“We need a year to get organized and learn,” said Miller, who added the group will need to create bylaws and secure nonprofit status, among other tasks. “Having people help will spread the workload. This is a huge undertaking for a few people to do.”

Miller said she worries they are starting the friends group too soon. However, if the library project is ready in the next two years as she hopes, the group needs to be ready to help fund programming and other needs. At the Braden River Library, for example, the Friends of the Library funds all non-library, staff-led programming, some reading resources and planning for things such as library expansion. Friends of the Braden River Library donated nearly $8,000 in 2017 for programming and other needs, library branch manager Cathy Laird said.

Laird said friends groups are critical for helping the library keep focused on the needs of the community and providing relevant programming.

“The county does not provide funding for programming,” Miller said of why a friends group needed. “They also do not provide funding for professional development for the librarians.”

Miller, who retired from Pennsylvania two years ago, worked 35 years in education, most recently as a reading and language arts supervisor, a role in which she worked with libraries to coordinate programming and professional development for teachers, among other tasks. She hopes there can be a strong partnership between the library and schools.

At the community meetings she has attended, and according to feedback from residents, Miller said there is definitely demand for programming, particularly for preteens and teenagers, at the future library.

Menard would like to see some sort of cafe, like there is in the Rocky Bluff Library, and possibly a Discovery Lab, like at Manatee’s Central Library. The Discovery Lab is a large enclosed space where teenagers can use robotics and expand their science, technology, engineering and mathematics education.

“Of course we want all that and more,” Menard said, laughing.