KENT – Kent Memorial Library honored its volunteers at a luncheon on Sunday, Nov. 10, in the library.
Executive Director Sarah Marshall lamented that choosing the annual volunteer of the year is incredibly difficult, likening it to “choosing between your children.”
However, she noted that this year’s Volunteer of the Year Rick Vizzari is someone who has filled many roles, and always answers the phone.
She gave Vizzari all the credit for the library’s roof not leaking in the last 18 months.
Vizzari has served as a Kent Library Association board member for seven years and is the chair of the KML Facilities Committee.
He recalled having begun volunteering by building shelves and cabinets for the library about 20 years ago prior to joining the library’s board in an official capacity in 2017.
“One of the first shelves I built is still in the Junior Room. Tanta Sue painted it,” said Vizzari, crediting his wife, Susan Vizzari, who also volunteers with the library and other organizations in Kent.
Approximately 50 of the more than 125 library volunteers were in attendance, including some of its youngest volunteers, Derek Braislin, 11, and his sister, Abby Braislin, 10.
The two clocked about 40 hours each this summer in various capacities, including at the library’s summer-long used book sale and the summer camp for elementary school children on Wednesday afternoons.
Abby Braislin beamed while describing her role as a junior counselor for this past summer’s library camp. “You help set up. You have a group of four or five kids you help do the activities,” she said.
About restocking the book sale tables, Derek Braislin said, “It’s fun. I paid attention to which cookbooks sold fastest. Definitely the New York Times cookbooks.”
He elaborated that, along with cookbooks, gardening books, board books for babies, and sets of kids books also sold well.
Marshall stood on a chair in the Junior Room to address attendees seated at long tables as they ate. The spread included sandwiches from J.P. Gifford Market and Davis IGA, with salad and desserts created by Kent Library Association board members.
She expressed gratitude to everyone who gave their time to the library and noted that breaking ground on the new addition to the library—hopefully in spring of 2025—will require volunteers to serve in different ways.
“Next year will be all a bumble … We have a meeting Tuesday to figure out how to do our book sale,” she said, postulating that pop-up sales or other events could help move inventory and keep customers coming back.
“The book sale is our longest-standing fundraiser,” Marshall stated.
She estimated that the sale grossed $80,000 this year. The book sale season generally runs from Memorial Day weekend to the second to last weekend of October each year.
Kent Memorial Library is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization that relies on a variety of annual fundraising ventures, in addition to volunteers, to keep the library and its programming available to the community.
Just over 25 percent of the library’s annual budget in fiscal year 2023 came from the Town of Kent, compared to more than 50 percent of library budgets in the neighboring towns of Sherman and Warren. Sharon and Cornwall, the two towns north of Kent, had municipal appropriation similar to that of Kent’s.
The Connecticut State Library Division of Library Development collects statistics on its 190 local public libraries. Many association libraries, such as Kent’s, are nonprofits and receive limited funding from the governments of the towns they serve.
Marshall noted that volunteering is cyclical based on what a given volunteer is interested in and that programming changes based on the needs and interests of library patrons.
For example, the annual summer benefit committee and their team of volunteers are very busy in the spring and summer, but not so busy in the fall.
Further, in order for longer term programming to remain sustainable, they tend to be volunteer run. Marshall gave the example of the two language groups, for Spanish and French speakers, that began meeting this year. Staff members participate in the groups per their interests, but the groups themselves are generally self-run by participants.
“The French Fridays group is reading a novel together in French,” she exclaimed, clearly tickled by their enthusiasm at the undertaking.
Marshall also described the intersection of the Spanish speaking group and the students who are tutored by Literacy Volunteers on the Green volunteers at KML. “It all comes together,” she said.
Staff and board members track the hours of their committees and other volunteers; in 2023, KML topped Connecticut’s list of library volunteer hours at 5,500.
Kent also ranked high in statewide statistics for most standard weekly hours of operation and events and recordings.
For more information, call the 32 North Main St. library at 860-927-3761, email kmlinfo@biblio.org or visit kentmemoriallibrary.org.
This story was updated at 9:15 a.m. on Tuesday, Nov. 12, to reflect updated captions on Connecticut State Library statistics.
