Dear Editor,
Have you seen all the activities happening at or around 231 S. Plum St.? There is always something to do and the activities are free. The Marysville Public Library was a busy place in 2017 and continues to be busy. In 2017, there were more than 192,500 visits to the library. The people who visited could have checked out books, magazines or movies. What I noticed, however, when I was at the library, were people utilizing numerous activities. The creative staff coordinates these activities in both children and adult services.
One of the children’s services I have personally experienced was the Summer Lunch Program at Partners Park. The library staff was instrumental in writing a grant to distribute free lunches to local children up to the age of 18. The library staff, along with Marysville School Food Service staff, have distributed summer lunches for several years. This program fed 8,428 children in 2018 and a total of 23,738 in the last four years. I had the opportunity to volunteer weekly, for several years, to help get these hungry youths a tasty, healthy lunch. After lunch, many children would then head over to the library to attend another long treasured children’s program – Story Time.
Another popular program for adults is the Community Outreach Program, which is specifically designed for members of our community who live in nursing homes or are homebound. The library staff consults with the patron and then selects and delivers books to them, allowing longtime residents of Marysville to remain connected to their community.
Recently the library has added an outreach program aimed at teachers. A request is placed by the teacher, and then library staff pull a stack of books on a certain topic for classroom use. What a wonderful time saving service for teachers, to get books in the hands of students without the process of digging through the stacks.
As a longtime patron of the Marysville Public Library, I strongly encourage you to vote for the 1.5-mill replacement levy. This will replace the 1.5-mill levy that was approved in 2013 by the Marysville community. This levy is needed to provide more than 57 percent of the library’s operating budget. I want to see the current level of service continued at the library.
Mary Ann Conley,
Glen Ellyn Drive