Happy New Year! As the year begins, we are reflecting on ways to take care of what we have, and let go of what we don’t need. In that spirit, we will be offering a clothing swap on January 17th. You can start dropping off clean, gently used clothing from now until the 15th. We are partnering with the Engather community for this event. Engather helps people practice living in a gift economy, strengthening the fabric of communities. Following the swap, we will offer two mending cafes to take care of what we’ve got, (or perhaps make alterations to a great find from the clothing swap!) There are so many ways we can find to take care of what we have, from our relationships to family, friends, neighbors, work, the earth, home, to our physical bodies, and creative hearts.

 

My intentions for the coming year align with the NY Public Library’s strategic priority to “Champion the Power of Reading in a Distracted World.” “Reading is the foundation of critical thinking, empathy, and civic participation, yet in a world dominated by algorithm-driven content and digital overload, deep engagement with books is fading. Misinformation is rising, fewer students are meeting critical reading benchmarks, and access to books, especially at home, remains uneven…” Our Friends group remains committed to getting books into the hands of young children through the Dolly Parton Imagination Library. If you know of families with young children in Rosendale, please encourage them to enroll to receive a free book each month. If you are interested in a particular kind of reading and discussion group, please let me know and we will try to make it happen. For example, some of our librarians enjoy sci-fi and horror novellas. Others enjoy books on practices to expand human potential, others are into Buddhism, and sewing. If this resonates with you, let us know, we will find some good examples of this genre and convene a reading group.

 

To expand our creative horizons, we will hold a Zine workshop on January 12 where we will learn to make a Zine. If you haven’t already checked out our display of Zines and the Zine Machine at the library, please come and see how you can take up this very personal and powerful form of expression. This art form can also dovetail well with the gift economy, a small offering or exchange of our expressive capacity.