Join us and Friends of JCPL Friday, Jan. 29, 2016, 8 a.m., at the Wheat Ridge Recreation Center for a breakfast buffet and an amazing guest speaker–Pulitzer Prize winner Elizabeth Fenn.

The Walter and Lucienne Driskill Professor of Western American History at the University of Colorado Boulder, Dr. Fenn’s field of study is the early American West, focusing on epidemic disease, Native American and environmental history.

In 2001, Elizabeth authored Pox Americana: The Great Smallpox Epidemic of 1775-82 and, in 1983, she coauthored Natives and Newcomers: The Way We Lived in North Carolina before 1770. Her latest work, Encounters at the Heart of the World: A History of the Mandan People won her the 2015 Pulitzer Prize in History, for its in-depth analysis of Mandan Indian history from 1100 to 1845.

Elizabeth is currently at work on an expansive biography of Sakagawea, using her life story to illuminate the wider history of the northern plains and Rockies.

The Annual Meeting is free for Friends of the Jefferson County Library. Friends may bring guests for a nominal cost of $10 per person, which can be used towards the purchase of a Friends membership. Seating is limited!

There are a couple of questions we always get asked when Colorado Gives Day rolls around:

1. What is Colorado Gives Day?
2. What is the Jefferson County Library Foundation?

The first question has a simple answer: Sponsored by Community First and FirstBank, Colorado Gives Day is an annual statewide movement to celebrate and increase philanthropy in Colorado through online giving.

Of course, as JCLF is a 501(c)(3), that means you can give to us on December 8, which brings us to the second question: What is JCLF? Let’s start with what we’re not.

JCLF is not the Jefferson County Public Library, which (as we’re sure you know) is a county entity. Taxpayers keep our Library’s lights on, its doors open and its librarians paid. Where taxpayers keep everything in service at our Library, the Foundation fills in funding gaps in programming. Put simply: taxpayers pay for the building; the Foundation pays for the programs.

What programs? We’re so happy you asked. Last year, the Foundation gave:

• $82,000 to Summer Reading
• $10,000 to JCPL2Go tablets for public use
• $7,000 to Children’s core digital materials
• $6,000 to Jeffco Stories, an oral history project
• $6,800 to Book Club Kits
• $3,000 to Early Literacy Playscapes

In fact, in total, the Foundation gave nearly $150,000 in support of Library programs that serve children, teens and young adults in all ten of our Jeffco libraries.

Beyond funding, the Foundation is people. We are a community of library-loving fanatics. If you don’t believe us just consider our volunteer core, which is just over 700 strong. Week in and week out, volunteers work at the Foundation offices sorting, scanning, boxing and pricing the 250,000+ books that come through our doors on their way to our huge biannual Whale Sales, the proceeds of which go back to benefiting our Library programs.

It takes more than 40 volunteers to run the Whale Sales per day. In fact, once the doors to the Whale Sale close, we can say that 2,000 volunteer-hours made the Whale Sale possible.

That’s real dedication to ensuring the future of our Library. But, when we’re talking about upholding the great tradition of free and equal access to information for all citizens, it’s difficult not to get a little passionate.

It’s really that passion that defines the Foundation.

So, when it comes down to it, Colorado Gives Day (December 8) is a day to support your passion. If that happens to be the Library, then the Foundation is a great option for your charitable dollars.

So, mark your calendars and visit Community First December 8 for Colorado Gives Day and be sure to support your passion–whatever it may be. Click here to support JCLF now.

The end-of-year holidays are always the very busiest of times. For many of us, the season involves constant shopping, running from one party to another, making lists, writing cards, stamping envelopes, wrapping gifts and decorating the house. It can be extraordinarily fun, and yet incredibly stressful. I don’t want to admit it, but even I—despite being surrounded by the season of joy—have given in to the Scrooge within and muttered a few Bah-Humbugs.

Dickens is the perfect antidote to the Bah-Humbug blues. A Christmas Carol reminds me that the season is not about the largest gifts, the free shipping or the grandest party; it is about generosity of spirit, compassion and kindness. The holidays are about appreciating what you have and sharing what you can others. This time of year is all about simple gestures and spreading good cheer.

When Charles Dickens wrote A Christmas Carol, it was to earn some extra money for himself, his wife and their four children (a fifth was on its way during the Christmas of 1843). He had more plans for the book than just sales. He wished for the book to be a gift—both inside and out. The author insisted upon an ornate binding and spine, a red and blue title page, a blue half-title page, and yellow endpapers, all of which drove the book’s production expense up. He then insisted upon a sales price of just five schillings. This made the book affordable to the masses, who responded by snatching the book off the shelves. Though A Christmas Carol was hugely popular, it didn’t earn much for Dickens and his family.

But the story continues to be a gift, generation after generation. With every winter holiday season, I am reminded of Dickens and his desire to share this particular work with the world—even by sacrificing his profits to reach the largest readership possible. It’s almost as if he knew A Christmas Carol would invariably lift the spirits of weary souls.

Dickens understood the power of books, and year after year, his iconic story of Ebenezer Scrooge reminds us all to be charitable, caring and supportive of others. I hope you will join us for this year’s Read Like the Dickens – A Rare & Novel Event, to help us celebrate and share happy holidays together, just as Dickens imagined.