Altamont Library Notes for Wednesday, December 18, 2019
The Enterprise — Michael Koff
Candy canes, licorice, gumdrops, and chocolate kisses are all part of the decorations on this gingerbread house, made as an Altamont Free Library project and displayed with a veritable village of houses for the Victorian Holiday celebration.
Over the next few weeks, the Altamont Free Library is partnering with Senator George Amedore and numerous collection points throughout the Capital District (including the Guilderland Public Library) to collect old cell phones and redistribute them to members of the military and recently returned veterans through a charity called Cell Phones for Soldiers Inc.
Their mission is to provide cost-free communication services to active-duty military members and veterans. Cell Phones for Soldiers reports that they have provided more than 204 million “Minutes That Matter” to deployed troops. Since 2012, their “Helping Heroes Home” initiative has provided emergency funds for more than 400 returning veterans to alleviate communication challenges as well as physical, emotional and assimilation hardships.
If you have an old cell phone that’s collecting dust, please consider dropping it off in our collection box between now and the end of December. From all of us at Altamont Free Library, we extend our gratitude to all of our military veterans for their selfless service to our county. Thank you all!
Holiday hours
Please note that Altamont Free Library will be closing at 3 p.m. on Tuesday, Dec. 24 and closed on Wednesday, Dec. 25. Looking further ahead, we’ll also be closing at 3 p.m. on Tuesday, Dec. 31 and closed on Wednesday, Jan. 1 . Happy Holidays to all!
Story Swap
Back in October, we held our first-ever Altamont Remembers Story Swap, and it was a huge success! We heard all kinds of stories about people and events that occurred in the village, some going back more than a century.
This holiday season, we’ll be holding our second Story Swap, but this time we want to hear all about your Christmas and winter memories. What did Main Street look like after the first snow? Who led the caroling? Where was the best sledding hill?
If you’ve got memories to share, we’d love to hear them and record them for posterity, so join us this Friday, Dec. 20, at 6 to 7 p.m. for some hot chocolate, good neighbors, and great stories.
Dan Frinta Exhibit
We have a very talented community, and we love getting to put those talents on display. For the next few weeks, it will be our pleasure to host an exhibit of photographs by our friend, Altamont-based photographer Dan Frinta!
Dan’s work has been featured frequently in the “Times Union” and “The Altamont Enterpris” among other publications. Thanks, Dan, for letting us show a small bit of your incredible body of work!
Amazon Smile
Speaking of fundraising, here’s a great, easy, cost-free way to support the library: If you do some of your holiday shopping on Amazon, please consider going to Smile.Amazon.com (instead of just regular old Amazon.com).
Everything on the website will be exactly the same as usual, but you’ll have the opportunity to choose Altamont Free Library as your charity of choice and a portion of your purchase will go to support the Altamont Free Library, even though your gifts won’t cost you a penny more than they normally would! (You can do that all year round, if you like, but we just thought we’d mention it now.)