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Donor Society Luncheon, sponsored by
October 15, 2010,
at Town & Country Club.

For more information on becoming a Donor Society member, please call
651-222-3242 or friends@thefriends.org.

Donor Society

The Donor Society recognizes The Friends' most generous individual supporters. Society members make substantial annual gifts to The Friends, such as a contribution of $500 or more. Additionally, individuals or families who have made provisions for The Friends in their estate plan automatically become members of our Donor Society. Currently more than 200 individuals belong to the Donor Society.

18th ANNUAL DONOR SOCIETY LUNCHEON

Friday, October 15, 2010
11:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m.
Town & Country Club, Saint Paul
sponsored by Securian

The annual Donor Society luncheon recognizes the generosity shown by The Friends' contributors who help support the Saint Paul Public Library. This year’s luncheon on Friday, October 15, will feature Kevin Kling, a well-known playwright, storyteller and author. His commentaries can be heard on NPR’s "All Things Considered," and his plays and adaptations have been performed around the world. His latest book, Kevin Kling’s Holiday Inn was a Minnesota Book Award finalist. It will be presented to all Donor Society members in attendance, and signed by the author upon request, following the program. If you would like to be a member of the Donor Society, please contact Liz Boyd at The Friends.

Celebrate all the holidays – and then some– with renowned storyteller Kevin Kling, whose sense of the ridiculous never gets in the way of his appreciation for human nature. Kling’s first book, The Dog Says How, brought readers into his wonderful world of the skewed and significantly mundane. Kling does it again in Kevin Kling’s Holiday Inn, a romp through a yearful of holidays. A wiener dog with an amazing capacity for destruction impresses the whole family and contributes to their collection of favorite disastrous Christmas stories... A Choctaw and a nun go trick-or-treating on Halloween... A boy makes a frightening decision every year when he chooses which classmate gets the “Be Mine” Valentine... From tomfoolery with his brother in the backseat of their dad’s car, through his carefully considered instructions for ice fishing, Kling never loses the spirit of his story or holds back on its humor.

In 2009, Donor Society members were enthralled by Curt Brown, who told the story of a powerful storm which struck the Great Lakes the fall of 1905, causing one of the most dramatic shipping disasters in the nation's history. His book, So Terrible a Storm: A Tale of Fury on Lake Superior, was presented to all Donor Society members in attendance. The 2009 Donor Society Luncheon was sponsored by RBC Wealth Management. Brown is a reporter at the Minneapolis Star Tribune, where he has worked for 20 years.

At the 2008 Donor Society Luncheon, sponsored by Securian, Donor Society members were entertained by Stanley Trollip, who, with his friend Michael Sears (under the nom de plume Michael Stanley) wrote A Carrion Death, set in modern-day Botswana. Michael Sears and Stanley Trollip, both South Africans by birth, are retired professors who have worked in academia and business; Sears in South Africa and Trollip in the USA. Their love of watching the wildlife of the African subcontinent has taken them on a number of flying safaris to Botswana and Zimbabwe. A Carrion Death was their first novel.

At The Friends' 2007 Donor Society Luncheon, we welcomed as our guest speaker, author Biloine "Billie" Young, who talked about her research and the writing of her book, A Noble Task: The Saint Paul Public Library Celebrates 125!, signing copies of this beautiful book for all in attendance. 

In 2006 we welcomed the critically acclaimed author Peter Brown, who presented his book, The Fugitive Wife.

The 2005 Donor Society luncheon featured Minnesota Book Award-honored writing couple Pete Hautman, author of the National Book Award-winner Godless, and Mary Logue, a poet and author of the popular Claire Watkins mystery series.

In past years, featured authors at Donor Society events have included Walter Mosley, Rosellen Brown, Patricia Hampl, Judith Guest, Bill Holm, Christopher Cerf, Ellen Hart, Jon Hassler, Vince Flynn and Sandra Benitez.

For more information on becoming a Donor Society member, please contact The Friends at 651-222-3242 or friends@thefriends.org.