Some of my earliest memories center around books and horses. I was obsessed with horses from kindergarten. A lovely brown horse lived in a big pasture about a half mile down the lane behind our house. I used to walk there, pick grass from outside the pasture fence, and call Folly to come. While she was standing beside me, I would climb up to the top rail, and slide down her neck onto her back. Even at that young age, I appreciated that sitting astride a horse is one way to enjoy the view of the world and to explore your environment.
No one could understand where I got my crazy passion for horses from; a passion that my parents said probably gave them every gray hair on their heads!
I didn’t have a horse of my own back then. But, I remember vividly the way the books in my third grade teacher’s classroom library fulfilled my mind with stories about horses. I read the same books over and over again–books such as Misty of Chincoteague and Billy and Blaze. I had a second passion now in addition to horses. It was books! In an effort to broaden my reading list, my mother took me to get my first library card at our nearest branch of the Baltimore County library system. I’ve been reading books about horses plus biographies, mysteries and more, and amassing library cards from all the places I have lived, ever since.
Fast forward fifty years…
Volunteers who are Friends of the Trone Memorial Library try to help and encourage others to pursue their passions through reading. We operate the Friends’ bookstore on the lower level of Trone Memorial. Someone scans the book donations. Someone lists some of our donations for sale on Amazon. Some of us work in the bookstore. We clean. We examine books according to their condition. We shelve and alphabetize books by author and/or category. (There are a lot of mental gymnastics. We have to think, “Now, does the letter P come before or after the letter Q?” for example.) We operate an electronic cash register via Square. We welcome the visitors to shop and to learn about our activities and events. We do lots of outreach in the community, because, although we use social media, in a small town such as East Berlin, the personal connections, small flyers, friendliness, and word of mouth go a long way.
During 2022, the Friends of the Trone Memorial Library participated in the community Easter egg hunt, held a Roots for Boots food drive, hosted a two-day yard sale, set up a booth at National Night Out, and held a couple of four-day Fill Your Bag for $5 book sales. In addition, we have enjoyed some fun-filled trivia night contests in our library’s beautiful community room.
In case you are wondering…The theme for our booth at the National Night Out was…Horses! We had horse-themed decor and a contest to guess the number of spots on a pony. Every child who took a guess won a prize. Prizes included books about horses, coloring books with horses, horse figurines, etc., plus some of our Friends’ membership gifts.
We know that we are making connections in East Berlin, the surrounding areas, and throughout Adams County by becoming a Friends group. There is a place for many diverse talents within the Friends. Please come and see us. Better yet, if you love reading and making friends, please consider volunteering for a Friends group or library in your neighborhood.
Submitted by Jackie King, Secretary, Friends of the Trone Memorial Library