With the Weyburn Public Library bringing in $265 from just 53 participants enjoying 10 rounds of Mini Golf on Thursday, the branch is working toward some goals to purchase more updated tech.

"We are in the effort of trying to be able to be more current, and 'with it', and buy more up-to-date equipment," explained Branch Manager Dawn Silver. "We're taking a leaf out of Estevan's book. Estevan has used this mini golf as a fundraiser on two separate occasions now. They loaned us the equipment - we helped purchase it as well -  and we want to purchase maybe a Mario Kart or a new [Nintendo] Switch." 

She said the targeted fundraising is, "for a specific project within the community that's going to benefit from it all."

The course, Silver noted, was challenging to set up, but it has been fun, too.

"We're looking at at least three different fundraisers, aside from our traditional book sales that are organized and run by our volunteer library board," she noted. "We're applying for a different number of different grants. We got a wonderful Access grant last year, we got $1,500 to buy supplies for programming, which set us up really, really well."

"In the effort of trying to get this going, we're doing some fundraising, some localized sort of pop up fundraising. There may be a chili cook off in the fall. Anything to do with really nifty food is always appreciated."

Other ideas include a horror fest for teens and adults who just love horror films.

Silver said since she started in November, she has been grateful for the 'huge amount of support', including random donations here and there for $100 or $200. 

"People do think of the library, and we do appreciate it, and we do utilize your money wisely and carefully and we are probably one of the best community services that's actually quite underutilized in that we get tons of support," she commented. "People don't necessarily use us a lot. There are periods of their lives where they're busy with us and then they kind of quit. But people come back to us and then they find out we're not the library that you remember and we've got tons of new stuff."

She said that is the goal they're working towards, in fact, not being 'the library you remember', but being the library that the community is asking for.

"We want things to be accessible, user friendly, and that makes it possible for people to take some blocks of time and not hours and hours and hours," she added. "I think everybody's pace of life is pretty fast right now, and so that's why we're offering these multiple programs on multiple days. "

Silver said she has never seen programming like what we have here in Weyburn.

"Massive city libraries don't do this much programming. People should be incredibly proud of what's happening here in Weyburn and the support we're getting is really fabulous." 

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