Event to be held December 3 at NYM City Ballroom

By Tucker Henderson

Reporter

With the Christmas Tree Festival on its way to town, remember to stop by Bingo for Books on Tuesday, Dec. 3 from 5-6 p.m. and walk away with a new winter read.

The event is sponsored by the Friends of the Library group whose sole purpose is to support programing at the NY Mills Public Library through fundraising efforts. Bingo for Books is an event that was created out of the organization’s program planning a few years ago.

“It’s just a fun activity that they came up with a while ago,” said Library Director Julie Adams. “It’s regular bingo, we don’t charge anything for people to play, and as people win they can choose books as prizes. It’s open to all ages, so a family fun event.”

“We do an hours worth of rounds,” continued Adams. “It starts at 5 o’clock and goes until 6 o’clock, but people can join in anytime. For example, if they want to go and take a sleigh ride outside, they can easily fit that in and stop by and play bingo for a while too. They can also view the trees while they’re up there and all of that, it’s a really good time to get it all in at once.”

During last year’s Bingo for Books event, around 80 people joined in to play bingo and win a new favorite book. The Friends of the Library purchase a number of books each year as prizes for the event and library staff members sort out like new books from their donations throughout the year to add to the prize pile.

“That is the tricky part to know,” said Adams. “Our Friends of the Library group bought a lot of books that will be used as prizes, plus as people donate books to the book sale, we put some of them away as bingo prizes as well. So we’ve been kind of working towards gathering a stash of books to take over as prizes for a while now, so I’m hoping we have enough books to go around for everybody.

“The Friends of the Library group are able to purchase these prizes and sponsor activities because of people supporting our used book store in the library meeting room,” she added. “We keep playing until everybody wins something. We really do want everyone to take home a book.”

Along with the excitement of the evening’s activities and large crowd of bingo players, Adams mentioned that her favorite part was the family aspect of the whole event.

“I love it when I see families come,” she said. “There’s grandma, and mom, and grandkids—I just love to see families come for this event and there are books for all ages to win as prizes for them all.”