Book sale, apple festival make for a busy weekend in Salem
Salem — Book lovers and apple enthusiasts alike will want to make a trip into town this weekend, but may want to get there early.
The annual Friends of the Salem Library Book Sale runs Friday night and all day Saturday. The annual Salem Apple Festival, run by volunteers from the Congregational Church of Salem, starts at 9 a.m. Saturday and runs until everything is sold out, which doesn’t take long.
Shirley Dubeau, whose husband, Tim, is the pastor of the church, said there are always lines for pies, crisp and other desserts. Raffles have been held where the winner gets a spot at the front of the line for apple fritters.
Church volunteers work multiple mornings a week starting in mid-September to prepare all the apple dishes. Dubeau said the volunteers have been using most of the same recipes for the 47 years the festival has been running.
The apples for the festival are supplied by Scotts’ Connecticut Valley Orchard in Deep River and Scott’s Orchard and Nursery in Glastonbury because the brothers who own the farms attend the church. The apples used in the pies, fritters and other dishes are “orchard runs,” which are whatever the orchards are picking that week. Additional apple varieties are available at the festival.
Down the street from the apple festival is the book sale, which started in 1991 and is one of the main fundraisers for the library. Carl Nawrocki, president of the Friends of the Salem Library, said the event has grown from raising about $700 to more than $8,000 a year for the library.
The Friends provide funding for many library programs and much of its collection. This year the library purchased a 3-D printer. Nawrocki estimated that about 650 to 700 people attended the sale last year.
People can donate books for the library at any time, but preparation for the sale begins in June, when a team of about 40 to 50 volunteers, ranging from Girl Scout troops to retirees, start sorting through the donations. Sorting is completed by the end of September. As soon as school is out on the day of the sale, volunteers start setting up the 90 tables needed to hold all 70 categories of books available at the sale.
Nawrocki said they usually have a line of about 100 people waiting for the members-only opening at 6 p.m. Friday, with some coming as early as 3 p.m. to get in line. Many are book dealers, who have said the Salem book sale is well run with good-quality books. Others may only come for a particular kind of book, such as cookbooks or large-print books.
“It’s sort of like an unofficial town event,” Nawrocki said.
The book sale has always been held the same weekend as the apple festival, so residents can attend both.
Other events on Saturday include the Salem School PTO basket raffle from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. at the school. The library's knitting sale also starts on Saturday and runs until Christmas.
The Friends of the Salem Library Book Sale is held in the Salem School gym, 200 Hartford Road. It runs from 7 to 9 p.m. Friday, with a 6 p.m. early opening for members. Memberships will be available at the door. The sale will continue Saturday from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Books are priced around $1.50 for hardcover and $0.50 for paperback. The “bag sale” starts at 1 p.m., when a plastic shopping bag full of books is $5.
The Congregational Church of Salem’s Apple Festival starts at 9 a.m. Saturday morning and runs until all items are sold. The festival is held at the church community center, 249 Hartford Road, and across the street on the town green.
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