Cottonwood library to celebrate anniversary

MAYOR BOOSTS FOR BOOKS: Cottonwood’s honorary Mayor Jim Seale looks through an album of historic photographs of the Cottonwood Community Library. The library celebrates its second anniversary Aug. 4.

August 4, 2009 will mark the second anniversary of the grand opening of the Cottonwood Community Library in its current new home. It took countless hours of hard work, fundraising, and continued support from the surrounding community to make this vision a reality. Birthday cake will be served in the back meeting room all day on August 4th to acknowledge the special day. The public is invited to come in for a piece of cake and to celebrate the occasion.

Jim Seale, Honorary Mayor of Cottonwood, whose candidacy proceeds went to the support of the library, fondly recalled the years of hard work and dedication it took to complete the task of opening the library in its present new location.

"At the very first brainstorming meetings back in the fall of 1995, there were people like Doc and Mary Reifert, Sharon and Cliff Thomas, Mary O'Keeffe, Gayle Harrington, and Cecelia Swetland who sat around Sharon and Cliff's dining room table, trying to come up with a way that Cottonwood could once again have a library for its people.

"Those dedicated people found the proper channels to make the whole thing possible and to bring us here to be able to celebrate today. It was a great example of a community coming together for a common cause. Those people never thought the task was too great, and saw to it that it got done."

The two-year-old library now offers a computer lab, where state of the art computers are available for use by the library patrons. Off-site Storytime is done at various day care centers in the area, as well as books taken to shut-ins who cannot make their way into the library. Storytime is also held in the library each Wednesday from 11:30 a.m.-12:30 p.m., with different themes and activities planned each week.

A reader's club is held each month to gather folks together with a love for reading to meet and discuss the latest book.

Tutoring, both for English and Hispanic-speaking clients, takes place by appointment, as does help from HICAP assistants servicing the senior citizens with social security and Medicare needs.

If you wish to make a donation on behalf of the anniversary of the library, donations can be mailed to: Cottonwood Community Library, P.O. Box 1807 Cottonwood, CA 96022. Gayle Harrington can be reached at the library during normal business hours at 347-4818.

MAYOR BOOSTS FOR BOOKS - Cottonwood's honorary Mayor Jim Seale looks through an album of historic photographs of the Cottonwood Community Library. The library celebrates its second anniversary Aug. 4.