Serving Gogebic, Iron and Ontonagon Counties

Mercer Library Friends thank community with pie social

By RICHARD JENKINS

[email protected]

MERCER, Wis. - Pies of virtually every flavor were on the menu Sunday at the Mercer Community Center as the Friends of the Mercer Library held its annual pie social.

The purpose of this event - it's not a fundraiser," Friends president Wendy Thiede said. "It's just an event to give back to the community because we have so many wonderful library supporters in this community. It's just something we could do."

Thiede said she was pleased with the event, which also featured minnow races for the kids and music by performer Ron Harrison.

"We started at 2 p.m., and it's been a steady stream of people in," Thiede said. "We had 19 pies, and they're almost gone."

This is the second year the group has had the pie social, Thiede said, after it replaced the consignment auction they use to hold.

The minnow races for the kids involved putting two minnows in respective rain gutters of water and seeing which minnow moved the farthest to the other end of the gutter in the allotted time.

"I think (the race) is a really awesome way to entertain ourselves with the minnows," said Piper Lundquist, who said her minnow won her a couple races before it "decided" to quit trying and just stayed in one place.

While the event wasn't a fundraiser, Thiede said any money given in tips would go to the Friends of the Library, which pays for a range of things at the library.

"The Friends of the Library pay for extra things the town budget does not pay for," Thiede said, including programming, furniture upgrades and the future installation of solar panels at the library.