BEL AIR, Md. — It’s not often you see a long line form as people wait for the doors to open at the Bel Air branch of the Harford County Public Library.
“Every year. Multiple times throughout the year,” said Patty Wright of Havre de Grace, “I mark in on the calendar in January so I know what date so I don’t block anything else around there.”
These people aren’t here to check out books.
They’re here to buy them.
“Can’t beat 50 cents a book or two bucks a book for a hardback,” said Alison Hollida of Bel Air.
“When you go out on the open market now and try to buy a book, are you going to find anything for 50 cents?” we asked.
“Never,” she replied, “Definitely not.”
The Bel Air Friends of the Harford County Public Library do all the heavy lifting, collecting donated books and organizing these charity book sales throughout the year.
President Amy Cedrone joined the group after attending one of the book sales ten years ago.
“Well, we have five really big sales,” explained Cedrone. “In the fall and spring, we do an adult and a children’s sale and over the summer, we do a big adult material sale, but we also have what we call ‘pop up’ sales so when we get a lot of a particular subject, like we have a lot of history or we have a lot of cookbooks and gardening, we’ll do a one or two-day sale where we pop up for a couple of days and we have a couple of hundred dollars doing that.”
The group raised an estimated $22 thousand through all of its book sales last year funding primarily children’s programs at the library that it otherwise could not afford to offer.
“We do our best with what we have and we are very supported by the state and the county, but this little extra really does make a difference and you can feel the energy here,” said Leslie Greenly Smith, marking and communications director for the library, “It’s a feel-good thing for the whole community.”
