The Greenwood Public Library’s top two sources of local fundraising may be drying up, Greenwood’s mayor and council heard Monday, Feb. 8.
RELATED: Greenwood public library renews call for more city funding
The library raised around 16 per cent of its overall budget in 2019, according to that year’s provincial report on public library grants. Most public libraries in B.C. raise between two and four per cent of their budgets, the report found.
Donations through the library’s bottle drive, started last spring by board member Roegen Lloyd, is “down to a trickle,” Lloyd said. The drive had been “extraordinarily successful” while area bottle depots were shuttered during the early phases of the COVID-19 pandemic, but Lloyd noted that returns have fallen starkly since depots re-opened. Many bottles not returned to depots are going to bottle drives for other community initiatives, she explained.
Posted by Greenwood Public Library on Saturday, October 3, 2020
Meanwhile, Lloyd said funds raised through the sale of cloth face masks had “kept the library afloat” in 2020. Volunteers sewed the masks from around 100 metres of fabric donated by Miriam March’s Whispering Pines Quilting Studio in Rock Creek, according to Board Chair Anne Rayner Gould.
Sales were steady across 2020, thanks to participating local businesses. But Rayner Gould told mayor and council she was concerned that the demand for face masks will probably slacken as the province continues to vaccinate people against COVID-19.
The fundraising shortfall comes as the board renewed its pre-pandemic request for more city funding. City hall currently contributes $6,400 to the library’s operating budget — $100 less than monies raised through the library’s bottle drive in 2020, according to Rayner Gould.
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