July 8, 2024

Dear Friends,

Signs of summer are everywhere. Kids are fishing the Broadkill River, Little League is happening under the Friday night lights, and summer tourists are visiting our shops and restaurants.

As the newly elected President of the board of the Friends, I’m writing to introduce myself and the other members of the board to you and to tell you about some of our plans for the coming year. Originally a native of Maryland, in 2020 I moved from Boston with my husband to Milton to be closer to my parents. Previously I worked in environmental education and taught middle school science. Currently I work as a substitute teacher and enjoy birding, jig-saw puzzles, and traveling. Last summer we drove all of historic Route 66!

Denny Hughes is now our Vice President and Janet Lank continues to serve on the board, now in the role of Treasurer. Denise Snight has taken over the notepad as Secretary and Lynn Wajda is Member at Large.

I would like to thank the outgoing president Patti Millman for her long and steady leadership of the Friends group, Barb Coffin for her studious note taking for meeting minutes, and Member at Large, Kathleen Higgs for chairing the Membership Committee, spearheading the mini-meetings and library staff appreciation events.

Since our last general meeting in May, the new board has held two executive board meetings. I am certain that with our newly elected board members, who represent a mix of the long-serving and the new, we will continue our efforts to support the readers and learners of Milton. Collectively we are motivated to create opportunities for members to volunteer, to bolster our membership and to add funds to our coffers to support our community library.

In this vein our Bookstore is open on Wednesdays during the summer from 5 pm-7 pm.  If you haven’t yet signed up to work a shift, please do so at https://signup.com/go/vGcDsQL. Your time volunteering is greatly appreciated as we work to have more operating hours, which will help us raise more funds for the library and more awareness of our Friends group.

If you prefer to share your time and talents behind the scenes, consider joining a Friends committee. We need members to join the Membership Committee, which is chaired by Lynn Wjada.

We are eager to fill the new Fundraising committee with a chairperson and members. The committee will engage the public with creative fundraising initiatives from raffles, grant writing, and DoMore24DE for example.

The Gift Shop committee will have a new sub-committee, the Bookstore Sub-Committee, so we are also seeking a chairperson and members to manage the shelves, manage donations, rotate the inventory, and handle bookstore operations.

Maybe your skillset is communicating with others.  The Communication and Community Involvement Committee is eager for members to create social media posts, design flyers and brochures, write press releases and stories about the dynamic work we are doing on behalf of our community library. If you are interested or have any questions about these opportunities to help the Friends group grow and serve our Library community, please contact me.

A big birthday is happening next year, not mine but the Milton Public Library will be celebrating its 150th anniversary. We need members to serve on the Ad-Hoc committee to work with Library Director Lisa Petrecca, other community organizations and businesses in developing and implementing event ideas, fundraising activities, and the celebration of our library. This committee will serve until December 2025. There is so much history to recognize and honor that work on this committee will be very rewarding. The first meeting for the 150th Ad-Hoc committee will be Wednesday, August 21st at 3:00 pm at the Library.

As a reminder, our monthly general meetings are held on the third Wednesday bimonthly at 4:30 pm at the library. Our next one is scheduled for September 18, 2024. These general membership meetings are open to the public. Please join us if you are interested in hearing more about what we do, in meeting your fellow Miltonians, and in serving our community. Please contact me at president.fompl@gmail.com to learn about committee opportunities, to make suggestions, to ask questions or just to say hello.

On behalf of the Board and myself we wish you all a wonderful summer, filled with friends and family and great books!

Lisa R. Welle Malone

President of the Friends of Milton Public Library

president.fompl@gmail.com