Annville Free Library reports record attendance, requests funding bump

This article was funded by LebTown donors as part of our Civic Impact Reporting Project.

The Annville Free Library requested an increase in Annville Township’s annual contribution from its current level of $28,000 to help cover increased insurance and utility costs as well as wage increases for staff.

Library board president Marty Brandt did not ask the township for a specific dollar-amount increase, saying he would leave that up to the board of commissioners. The library board’s request for an increase in funding for the coming fiscal year will be considered when the board takes up the 2026 budget at its Nov. 5 meeting, township administrator Candie Johnson told LebTown.

The township’s contribution pays for programs that draw visitors to the library, Brandt said. The library is on track to count 46,000 visitors for 2025, he said, equal to or greater than pre-COVID levels.

“Pre-COVID, we were doing 400 programs per year, serving 5,700 people,” Brandt said. “We’re now doing 650 programs per year for 8,200 people.”

Those programs include crafting classes for children and adults via high-tech activities in the Annville Free Library’s new Creativity Center, the first such center in a Lebanon County library, he said.

“The Creativity Center is the big thing that I’m working on, getting new classes in there,” said Ronice Nolt, who became Annville’s library director last December. “We have staff and patrons volunteering to put on different classes. We’ve done painting bricks and bedazzling books and using the Cricut machine, and we just got our 3D printer.”

“Bedazzling” is the activity of gluing jewels to book covers to make them more fun to display, she said, and a Cricut machine is used to create personalized custom vinyl decals, stickers, iron-on shirt designs, handmade cards and other items. 

A professional is helping the library’s Creative Center set up its new 3D printer, which Nolt says the library expects to have ready for classes this autumn.

Commissioners voted 5-0 by voice to approve an application for a Community Development Block Grant, which is funded through the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development.

Johnson referred questions about the grant application to the county Housing & Redevelopment Authorities. Executive director Dan Lyons said in an email that localities were invited to submit requests for the current CDBG funding cycle by Sept. 5. Projects applied for now will not be under construction until spring 2027, he said. 

Annville’s most recent CDBG award, for $92,000 in fiscal year 2020 funding, paid for milling and overlay of a section of West Church Street, constructed in summer 2023, Lyons said.

Also Tuesday evening, Johnson announced the township has scheduled Halloween trick-or-treating for 6 to 8 p.m., Friday, Oct. 31.

Commissioners also voted to approve fire and police department support for the township’s annual Pumpkin Walk on Oct. 24.

The board also approved:

• An update to sewer surcharges.
• An update allowing the township to change fees for surcharging by resolution.
• Purchase of a utility task vehicle through a state Local Share Account.
• A $100 contribution to the Lebanon County Agricultural Preservation Board.
• Full release of $8,181.25 in financial security for the completed 152 S. Beaver S. project.

Township commissioners will meet next Tuesday, Oct. 7, at 6 p.m. in Annville Town Hall.