Saratoga Sampler
Saratoga Friends holds two major fundraising events
By Mary Ann Cook
BOOKS, BOOKS, BOOKS: Two major events coming for Friends of the Saratoga Libraries --paperback book sale on Oct. 18-22, and rare book auction on Oct. 19. The auction will be 7 p.m. with auctioneers Ann Marie Burger and Chuck Page, (who adopted a fitting name for the occasion).
Both events will be held in the library. The Book-Go-Round has some of the rare books on display until Oct. 15. They can also be viewed at the website: www.BookGoRound.com. These days buyers unable to attend the auction can email their maximum bids to Mary Jeanne Fenn, who's in charge of the auction.
She'll have a proxy at the actual sale to make the bids for the buyers. The auction usually brings in $3,000-$4,000. The paperback sale will be held from 6-9 p.m. on Oct. 18, and continue Thursday-Saturday, from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. and Sunday, noon to 4 p.m.
On Sunday buyers can load paper sacks chockfull of books with each sack costing $2. FSL clears an enviable $6,000 a month by operating The Book-Go-Round. Some 130 people volunteer their time at the store. Pat Mahler oversees merchandising and Fenn is the general manager.
People from all over donate books to the BGR, not just Saratogans. What accounts for such popularity? "We'll pick up books," says Fenn. "And some Friends groups don't do that. And people know that we'll put them to good use."
The Saratoga Friends are probably responsible, too, for the turnaround in public opinion about the library. A few years ago a consultant's appraisal showed that a library bond issue wouldn't pass in Saratoga, but this year such a bond measure did win approval.
"We made a concerted effort to educate the public," says Fenn. People just didn't realize how outdated the facility is because the librarians do such a good job that it wasn't clear to those outside. We have no interior walls, for instance, to run computer cables through."
So technology lagged behind the times. With the threat of losing the Community Room if the library weren't expanded, the community began to understand the need for a significant addition.
Going through donations for the Book-Go-Round is a veritable treasure hunt. "You never know what you're going to find," marvels Fenn.
COMMUNITY: Jennie Magid founded Hospice of the Valley after the death of first her mother, then her father and then her husband, George, in a short space of time, dramatized the imperative need of such a service for the terminally ill.
Magid is still very much in the thick of things, community-service-wise. She's an honorary member of the hospice board, for starters. And she helps raise funds for the Health Trust as a member of the grants committee and for the Youth Science Institute.
She's on the board of applied theology at Grand Theology Union and on Ecoworld's board.
Recently her children gave her a bang-up 70th birthday in Seattle. Those offspring are talented folks, too. Oldest son Paul is one of the Flying Karamazov Brothers, a mix of comedy, acrobatics and music that performs on Broadway, with symphonies and elsewhere.
Morgan is a Santa Cruz dermatologist and Victoria Barklow works on the financial side of Matrix Semiconductor. Barklow was also one of the 10 original people with Palm Pilot. Yikes.
FOR SENIORS: The recent Barbecue/Auction to benefit the Senior Center drew 300 people and raised $20,000--double what was expected. The outpouring of community support was incredible, said an overwhelmed Mary Goulart, center director.
Bill Anders of Factory Direct Carpet Company paid for entertainer Joe Cannon and all the accouterments. There was a huge volunteer staff--Scouts, Key Clubs and service clubs, such as DeAnza Kiwanis and Saratoga Rotary.
Plus these Saratoga Lions: Dick Siegfried, Kenny Harrington, Marge and Bunyard. Los Gatos Brewing donated the beer, Los Gatos Lions poured and Cupertino Lions manned the barbecues. Now the center can get a new paint job, new carpeting and a modular classroom.
A fashion show to benefit Adult Day Care will be held on Oct. 19, at the Toll House. For tickets, call Karen Lorenz at 408.868.1262.
COLLECTORS ALERT: Collectors of all stripes may find the current exhibit in the History Park section of Kelley Park in San Jose just their cup of tea. The display is called Object Obsession, the ordinary and the extraordinary, and contains some of the wackiest collections around.
The curators for the exhibit are Alida Bray of History San Jose and Steven Gelber, a history professor at Santa Clara University who has written a book called Hobbies: Leisure and the Culture of Work in America. Los Gatans Anne Louise Heigho and Jean Dudley worked on the exhibit, too. For more information, call History San Jose at 408.287.2290.
SHORTS II: On tap at the Gaslighter Theater in Campbell on Oct. 15, at 1:30 p.m., is a staged reading of seven short plays, finalists in the Silicon Valley Playwrights Association Festival of New Plays.
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Saratoga, California Since 1955
