The Brantford Symphony Orchestra book fair committee has been hard at work as they prepare for their upcoming annual book sale, which begins on Wednesday, April 24, 2024.
This year, the book fair will be taking place at the old City Hall building, located at 100 Wellington Sq., in Brantford, and will run until April 27.
During the four-day sale, shoppers can drop by anytime from 9:30 a.m. to 8:00 p.m. on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, and on Saturday, April 27 from 9:30 a.m. to 3:00 p.m.
There, shoppers will be able to find a variety of books, music, puzzles, vinyls, CDs and DVDs, and much more.
Penny MacKenzie, a BSO book fair committee member, said she is looking forward to the event’s second return since the pandemic.
“I’m just so thrilled to be back at it again,” she said. “At first, I was a little worried because we did so so well last year, and I was a bit scared that it was maybe just because people had been waiting for three years to A) donate their books, and B) to buy new books, but every indication right now is that it’s going to be just as big this year.”
The book fair has been up and running since 1964 and the committee has become the largest contributor of funds for the BSO to operate and put on shows like the upcoming May 14 concert, Classical Sax and Strings.
“Except for during COVID when we had to do it online, the BSO has been consistently supported for over 50 years by this book fair,” said MacKenzie. “It was begun by a group of women who thought it would be a good idea to pass on the books that they had read at a sort of little yard sale on their street. Since then, it has developed into the book fair, which has now become an institution and all this time, it’s been to support the symphony so that we could have an orchestra in Brantford.”
With thousands of books on hand, attendees will be able to discover a diverse group of genres from music to education, gardening, fashion, self-help, religion, sports, fiction, non-fiction, history and many more.
“There’s no way that anybody could come to this sale and not find something for them,” chuckled MacKenzie. “There’s a lot of record albums, a ton of DVDs, all kinds of textbooks and reference materials under every subject you can imagine. There are also really excellent children’s resources, as well as teacher resources. I think all together we have around 11 departments, so there’s something for everyone.”
MacKenzie said that since the City helped them find their new venue, committee volunteers have been collecting donated books since the end of March and have been busy cleaning, sorting and pricing ever since.
“We have a lot of great volunteers and they’re coming in daily to get everything ready for the sale,” she said. “We’ve been doing all kinds of sorting so that everything goes to the place where it’s most expected to be. We’ve also been cleaning, and of course pricing everything and that is always dependent on the age and the quality of the text. It’s a lot of prep work.”
She noted that for those interested in donating items for the event, the committee will be continuing to take donations until Saturday, April 20.
Kimberly De Jong’s reporting is funded by the Canadian government through its Local Journalism Initiative.The funding allows her to report rural and agricultural stories from Blandford-Blenheim and Brant County. Reach her at kimberly.dejong@brantbeacon.ca.
