The Spencer-Penn Centre will hold a two-day MHC is for Book Lovers event on Friday, Sept. 16 and Saturday, Sept. 17.
Susan Sabin, Director of the Centre, said the Friday night event will be a dinner, trivia, and silent auction with authors.
“We will have attending authors there and guests can buy their tickets to sit with a specific author. They can choose to buy out an entire table and have their entire trivia team come and sit together, or they can choose to just buy a general ticket and be placed with other guests,” she said.
Sabin said authors will socialize with all attendees, not just their trivia team table.
Book-related prizes will be awarded every round of trivia for the entire team. A cookie bar will also be on-site during the event that starts at 6 p.m.
Saturday’s event will be a book fest that is similar to a vendor fair, complete with authors, food trucks, and literary vendors.
“We also have story time. We’re going to have four authors reading one of their books at different times in our library. There’s also a kids’ corner that will have lots of fun too,” she said.
Sabin said the event will be held from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. and is free for everyone.
Attending authors include Betsy Ashton, Lacey Barker, Robert Bailey, Cindy W. Hollingsworth, Allie Marie, Dave Pendleton, and more. Sabin said Nancy Naigle, who has several books that have been turned into Hallmark movies, also will attend both events.
Spencer-Penn decided to hold the event after shifting through ideas, Sabin said, and added that when partnering with other agencies an event, the centre looks for a way to do things for the community that are not often emphasized.
“We have some amazing authors in the community, but there’s never been anything to really highlight them,” she said.
Sabin said the book events will also connect with Spencer-Penn’s founding mission of education.
“We were a school until 2004, and the goal after it closed and us putting together this non-profit is to continue to offer these educational opportunities and encouraging people to read and to grow in every area of their life, not just reading literacy, you know to get outside and to create through art classes,” she said.
Sabin said the event will be a safe opportunity for everyone to get out and have fun.
“This will be family-friendly, so people can bring their kids and know that they’re going to have fun too,” she said, adding that book lovers will also enjoy the event.
While this is the first book event, Sabin said the goal is to make it annual.
“Obviously, as time goes on, the needs and desires of your community changes. So, we’re just trying to find new ways to draw people in to serve them and to really be able to live out our mission in providing educational and cultural opportunities for our community,” she said.
Sabin said the organization hopes for about 100 people to attend Friday’s event, and would love to have at least 500 people at the book fest.
“In the past we’ve done well over that for some of our vendor fairs, but this is the first one, so we’ll see how it goes,” she said.
Tickets purchased in advance for Friday’s event will be $25. The cost per ticket at the door will be $35. To purchase tickets, go to www.kbsconsultantpa.com.
For more information, go to Facebook.com/Spencer-PennCentre or Facebook.com.MHCisforBookLovers.
