On Thursday, November 17, nearly 150 guests (including sponsors, volunteers, board members, donors and fans of the Library) joined us at Baldoria on the Water in Lakewood for our 15th annual benefit. As always, this event was held in support of our Jefferson County Library Foundation, and it helped us raise funds for the Jefferson County Public Library.

This year’s fundraiser was titled Holmes for the Holidays — A Rare & Novel Event, and (as you can guess) the evening centered on that famous literary icon, Sherlock Holmes. Our guests were first treated to a social hour where they were entertained by Rebecca Moritzky, a professional harpist, who provided just the right background sound to launch the special night. While guests mingled, they also previewed our vast silent auction — everything from sporting events tickets to shooting range certificates, and from lawn care to needle crafts.

Our event emcee and Board member, Neal Browne, added just the right polishing touches to the evening’s welcome and introductions, and — after our guests enjoyed a fabulous buffet dinner — Foundation Board President Tami Bandimere-Shrader proudly presented two special honors at this year’s benefit. Our 2016 Legacy Award was presented to Warren Roeske and his daughter, Allison Brigham, (above, right) for their generous support of the Standley Lake Library, while our first ever Partnership Award was given to Ben and Heather Mack, (left) owners of High Country Books.

We also gave special recognition to our evening’s honored guests: Jefferson County Sheriff Jeffery Shrader and his wife, Jane, along with Jefferson County Undersheriff Patricia Mundell and her husband, Larry.

Capping off the event, our guests enjoyed an original play presented by members of the local Colorado ACTS community theater troupe featuring Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson as they unraveled an intriguing (and amusing) mystery. The entertainment was highlighted by the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Department’s Deputy J.J. Smith (as Constable Smythe) and his sidekick, K-9 Thorn,  who helped our detective duo sniff out a series of clues and then nab the play’s sinister culprit!

I’m pleased to tell you that the evening helped our Foundation generate nearly $21,000! We appreciate everyone who participated in this year’s Rare & Novel benefit, including these key sponsors: The Jeronimus Family, Little Bear Inn, Bandimere Speedway, Pinkard Construction, Etkin Johnson Real Estate Partners, Solera Bank, Comcast’s Internet Essentials, Martin & Martin Consulting Engineers, and LeadersCove, LLC.

We are also grateful to our media sponsors: 93.7 The Rock radio and Colorado Community Media.

Stay tuned for news of our 16th annual event, which will be coming soon!

Following on years of tradition, the Foundation’s Fall Whale of a Used Book Sale was held on the third weekend of October 2016 at the Jefferson County Fairgrounds.

As you can guess from the name, it was another enormous sale! Not only did it raise $61,000 for JCPL programs, but this year we broke from our usual tradition in a very different way.

Over the past few years, the rise of online book-buying and the decline of books in print have changed the book industry. And though there will always be loyal book lovers, our Foundation discovered that we just couldn’t sell as many books at the sales as we used to. So . . . we decided to focus on bringing fewer – but better – books to the sale. This meant that boxes of books piled under the table (usually two high) were absent in most sections.

Lower volume made for easier browsing, less clutter, and less hefting and hauling for volunteers, but it did not mean lower sales.

In fact, sales on the Friends’ Preview Night (Oct. 20) were more than $4,000 higher than in spring, and $5,000 higher than the previous Fall Whale Sale. Sales were perfectly on pace with the Spring Whale of a Used Book Sale, as a whole, and we attribute this to bringing in better books with good sales records.

While we’re excited about the results, we know that some patrons were unfortunately disappointed. Inventory went quickly, and customers who were accustomed to getting great deals on a bag of books on Sunday (the final sale day), didn’t find as many books left over to choose from.

As we strive to improve our Whale Sales, the Foundation will continue to bring out the best
books at bargain prices, and we’ll also work, as always, towards hosting even better Whale Sales for our Jefferson County book lovers.

The 2017 Spring Whale of a Used Book Sale will be held the first weekend in June.

 

LET’S GIVE A WHALE OF A THANK YOU TO OUR EVENT SPONSORS!
Our 2016 Fall Whale of a Used Book Sale made a big splash, thanks to these supporting businesses:

Westerra Credit Union
The Book Stop
Bean Fosters
City of Lakewood

Media Sponsors
93.7 The Rock radio
Colorado Community Media

In-Kind Donors
Chick-fil-A
Chipotle Mexican Grill
Golden Real Estate

Effective immediately, large donations of used books and other materials will no longer be accepted at the east door of the Lakewood Library building at 20^th and Miller. Please bring boxed donations directly to our warehouse, at 10790 W 50th Avenue, Suite 200, in Wheat Ridge, CO, Monday-Friday, from 9:00 am – 4:00 pm.  If you have more than six boxes, please make an appointment for the drop-off by calling 303-403-5075. Directions to our warehouse are available here.

We’re trying to manage operations as efficiently as we can. By receiving donations directly at our warehouse, we can reduce the cost of transporting the materials and increase our support of Library programs.

As you know, we rely heavily on your quality donations of used books and materials. We appreciate your understanding of this closure and hope we will see you soon at our warehouse.

Please share this information with your friends and families and, don’t forget – our Fall Whale of a Used Book Sale will be held Oct. 21-23 at the Jefferson County Fairgrounds. For more information, or to volunteer, visit our event page.

Once again our small Foundation has pulled off a BIG event — the semi-annual Whale of a Used Book Sale!

This spring’s sale, held June 2-5 at the Jeffco Fairgrounds, was no exception. More than 3,500 book-buyers and book-lovers attended this year’s event, and they helped themselves to nearly 80,000 used books, CDs, DVDs, antique maps, LP records and more. New this year, we added in a Friends Preview night on June 2, we hosted an on-site book drive on Friday and Saturday, and we opened early on Friday morning for our Early Bird shoppers.

The best news of all is that we raised more than $65,000 at the event! These funds will be funneled back into our Jefferson County Public Libraries in support of programs and activities that include Summer Reading, American Sign Language Storytimes, Early Literacy programs, Jeffco Stories, the Culture Pass program, LibLab kits, and so much more.

We extend a heartfelt Thank You to everyone who joined us for the event, and most of all we want to thank our tremendous and dedicated corps of volunteers. We simply couldn’t produce such a fantastic event without their hours and hours of work in setting up the sale, the day-to-day customer service for our patrons, and the hard work taking down the displays, tables and boxing up left over books post-event.

 

Please join us for our next Whale Sale coming up October 20-23 at the Jefferson County Fairgrounds. If you’d like to volunteer, please let us know! We are always looking to add to our team.