Volunteer Tea

On Tuesday, April 21st, a Volunteer Appreciation Tea was held at Main Library. The entire staff at Main pitched in with baking, cooking, decorating, punch-making and piano-playing.

Over 38 volunteers showed up to enjoy tasty homemade sweets, punch, and tea. The volunteers ranged from assistants at the Friends of the Library booksales to shelvers and interlibrary loan processors. Lucky volunteers whose numbers were picked got prizes: books (of course!) and some potted primroses. But the best prize of all is having our volunteers help us in so many ways. Age doesn’t matter—the youngest was 8 and ½ , and the oldest was, well I don’t think we will reveal the octogenarian’s name.

The Santa Fe Public Library's 223 volunteers logged in 3907 hours last fiscal year, and the Friends' 241 volunteers logged in 5282 hours. We couldn't possibly put a dollar amount on the quantity and quality of work that they do, but if you do some math with Santa Fe's living wage you'll see that we couldn't function without them. Also, many of our volunteers perform tasks that are far from entry-level.

We have information about becoming a library volunteer, and we'd love to have you. Perhaps next year you'll be one of the lucky ones at the tea!