Patrons are asked to raise their paddle for their public library in Stuart at their annual fundraising auction next week.

The Stuart Library Foundation hosts this auction as one of two yearly fundraisers, which helps pay for new books, children’s programming, and more. Library Director Lisa Sherman mentions another project they also hope to fund, “Probably the biggest is, we’re looking forward to the Sesquicentennial next June, and the digitized papers are so important in fact-checking and actually getting the story straight, but we need quite a bit of money to get the next group of years digitized of the newspaper.”

The public can access their digitized newspaper archives reaching back to 1871 online at stuartlibrary.org. With the holidays coming up there are lots of potential gifts to bid on at the auction, from Iowa State University, Iowa Wild, and Des Moines Buccaneers tickets, to homemade jams, pies, and canned goods. The bidding will start at 6 p.m. Thursday, October 10th, with Chad Daugherty serving as auctioneer. Any craftsmen, artists, collectors, businesses, and organizations that wish to donate an auction item are asked to drop them off this Saturday and Monday during regular library hours.