The Letter in Your Mailbox

 All residents of the Town of Pleasant Valley should be receiving either today (December 10) or tomorrow a letter from Steve MacNish, president of the Board of Trustees of the Library, asking for donations to the Donor Building Fund.  This is the first major fundraising appeal for the Building Fund ever, although we have made smaller appeals in a brochure available at the Library front desk or at book sales sponsored by the Friends.  Residents are asked to donate via the Community Fund of Dutchess County, a nonprofit group that is managing the Building Fund for our Library (and also works with other local libraries to provide a safe haven and sensible income growth from funds)--note that you can reach the donation site for the Community Foundation by clicking on the name of the foundation earlier in this sentence. It is important to indicate that you wish to donate to the Building Fund of the Pleasant Valley Free Library when you donate online or by a check to the Community Foundation since they handle the finances of many nonprofit organizations throughout Dutchess and Ulster Counties. You can specify "Pleasant Valley Library Building Fund" on the note line of a check, and there is a place to indicate which fund you wish to donate to on the Web site as well.

Your letter from Steve will arrive as a folded sheet that is closed with two plastic tabs, not in an envelope.  The Library chose this means because it is considerably less expensive than using a letter enclosed in an envelope.  But just because it is tabbed and folded does not mean that it is unimportant.  We are counting on this fund drive to give the Building Fund a big boost forward.

We know financial times are difficult these days and that there are many requests for donations at this time of year--I was interrupted while writing this blog post by a telephoned plea from a conservation organization in fact. But this is the first time in over eight years that the Pleasant Valley Free Library has asked all the residents of the Town to help.  Please be generous.

Of course, one of the reasons for so many requests for funds at this time of year is that those who itemize their taxes can take charitable contributions off their income for the year.  The Community Foundation will see to it that every contribution is properly acknowledged so that there will be no question from the IRS about a tax deduction.  So give!