The Friends of the Library organization began in 1922 to raise money for local libraries and to assist them in their efforts to provide for their community; and for almost thirty years, the Statesboro Friends of the Library has done just that. 

Although Statesboro’s Friends of the Library organization has existed for almost thirty years, they only just recently opened a physical storefront. Beginning in 2021, the store sells donated books at reduced prices to those in Statesboro. All of their profits are donated to the Statesboro Library. 

“All of our books are donated,” said Pat Homer, the Vice President and Volunteer Coordinator of the bookstore. “And we sell those and all of the money goes to the library here in Statesboro. We pay for anything that the regular budget doesn’t pay for: Furniture, Breakfast with Santa, all of the children’s activities, those kinds of things, adult activities, pretty much a lot of things. And that gives the community a lot of access to things that they might not have, if it were not for us”

The store offers many different types of books including textbooks, children’s books, history books, foreign-language books, sports books, as-seen-on-TV books, and more, just like a typical bookstore. They also offer a wide variety of board games and CDs. 

“We really haven’t had to do a lot of outreach, people come to us,” said Homer. “Which is a great thing, we love that.”

Georgia Southern students have many opportunities to volunteer for Friends of the Library through Serve912, an organization that helps connect with volunteer opportunities.

“We have four volunteers here right now, and they are going through our biographies and putting them in alphabetical order. But the volunteers — I tell everybody, we could not run this bookstore without Georgia Southern volunteers. Because they’ve helped us move, they’ve helped us shift everything around in this bookstore when we wanted, tried to make more room, they continue to come in and help us sort, organize, and keep us going,” said Homer. 

The Friends of the Library is always accepting donations, with plans ranging from $15 per person, to lifetime plans of $1000.