The Friends of The Kempton Park Libraries organisation looks to further strengthen its ties within the community with one book at a time.
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The organisation was established in the year 2000 by Gerda Pienaar, the head librarian in Kempton Park, who recognised the need for public participation to assist the libraries.
“The main aim of our organisation is to collect funds to purchase books for the Kempton Park libraries and to encourage reading in the community,” said Jeanette Gunningham, chairperson at The Friends of The Kempton Park Libraries.
The local organisation hosts events, meetings and activities.
“As part of our income under our auspices we have a mainly Afrikaans Reader’s Circle which occurs monthly where books are read and discussed,” explained Gunningham.
“We have the Friendship Circle that meets once a month where women socialise and a handcraft is introduced.
The Scrapbooking group meets once a month on a Saturday and the card-making group was established for cards to be sold in the libraries.
“From time to time, we have programmes to encourage youngsters into the library and we feel there is a need in our community, for example, for reading of e-books in our libraries.”
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Gunningham also told Express that the restrictions imposed during the pandemic had negative impacts on the organisation.
“Covid-19 restrictions had a severe impact on our organisation as the libraries were closed as well as our groups and as a result, our membership drastically dwindled,” said Gunningham.
“Our needs are to request the public to make use of our libraries and to become a member of The Friends of the Kempton Park Libraries and in doing so, ensure we always have new relevant and interesting books on our library shelves.”
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