News Report #1

“Words and drink, for a good cause: books”
Matt Collette, The Day
8/30/2010
<http://www.theday.com/article/20100830/NWS01/308309935/1044>

The Stonington Free Library experienced a flood this past spring, damaging everything from carpeting, drywall, furniture, and around five hundred library books.  In total, the damage was estimated to be around $50,000 in the children’s section of the library.  Although the library can get federal aid, it still needed a good amount of money to complete all of the other repairs in the library.  Wanting to help, a man named Peter Brown donated 1,000 copies of his latest book called “Figure it Out,” in an effort to make enough money so that the library could be restored.  In return for a $25 donation to the Stonington Free Library, people would receive a free signed copy and a free drink for helping the donation efforts.   The daylong event turned out to be a great success, as hundreds of people made donations to the library. The money that was raised from donations will be going straight to repairing and restoring the library.

This article was both very touching and also shocking to me at the same time.  Technology today is so advanced that the internet has often replaced the need to go to the library.  Before reading this article I did not realize the amount of people that still use the library on a weekly basis.  After reading this article, it was obvious that this community placed high value on the Stonington Free Library, as hundreds of people gave donations to this effort and one very selfless man donated 1,000 copies of his book so that the library could be restored back to what it originally was.  The Stonington Free Library meant a great deal to this community and it was great to see how everyone came together and donated money to help support the effort.