Friends of the Sun Prairie Public Library: A History of Giving Back to the Community

Sun Prairie has a true friend in the Friends of the Library. (Sun Prairie Star, 3/31/2011)

Excerpt: From staffing the Read Before Book Store to paying for maintenance on the Sun Prairie Public Library’s saltwater aquarium, the Sun Prairie Friends of the Library group has a long history of giving back to the Sun Prairie community.

The group was founded in August 1988 by Isabel Bauman. The goals of Friends of the Library include planning and implementing programs to promote library resources and services; raising funds for special purposes and encouraging gifts, endowments and bequests to the library; providing volunteers for library projects; and promoting community awareness of the library and library events. Over the past 23 years, the Friends group has been responsible for a number of library projects, including construction of the current building.

In 1996, Friends of the Library became a non-profit organization, complete with 501(c)(3) status. A year later, the Friends group, which was chaired by Tom and Betty Gene Diener, agreed to pay $25,000 over a two-year period, for the book store space in the library. Friends of the Library also had the task of raising $2 million to build the current library.

Betty Gene said her husband, Tom, used to refer to Friends of the Library as “the conduit between the fundraising and the city” for the new library.

“All the money went through the Friends to build the library,” Betty Gene said. “We did all the collecting.”