Namaste! Enjoy yoga with your little ones at Treetop Yoga!
Join Erin McKay and Sawyer Free Library for Storytime Yoga – FREE yoga for children exploring stories, movement and fun this Tuesday, June 6 at 10:45 a.m. at Treetop Yoga!
Hosted by Sawyer Free Library, the free program will be held at Treetop Yoga Studio, 3A Pond Road. Yoga for children 5 and under and their caregivers.
Register at sawyerfreelibrary.org. Questions? Contact: jvitale@sawyerfreelibrary.org
Sawyer Free Library is excited to announce its Sawyer Free Folk Showcase this summer, a series spotlighting local singer-songwriters. The showcase will be held on the first Thursday of the summer months at its 21 Main Street location in downtown Gloucester. The first one is this upcoming Thursday, June 1, with Gloucester-based singer-songwriter Hayley Reardon from 6:00 to 7:00 pm.
Hayley will perform a 45-minute set of her music followed by a brief discussion about her approach to songwriting and lyrical composition. The evening is free and open to all to come and enjoy. No registration is required.
Hayley Reardon is a critically acclaimed folk-pop artist and a storyteller in the truest sense of the word. Her songs are postcards from an artist brave enough to take the road less traveled. Raised in Massachusetts, Reardon dove headfirst into music at 15 and honed her craft for over a decade, sharing the stage with acts like Lori McKenna, Rodney Crowell, and Anaïs Mitchell, among others. Her raw artistry boasts a lyrical and melodic weight far beyond her years. Her music has been described as “brilliantly moving folk/pop with a lyrical depth and soul” (Performer Magazine) and “a melancholy little masterpiece” (American Songwriter Magazine). She recently made a splash with her single, “Losing From Within,” grabbing the attention of Spotify Editorial Playlists like Fresh Folk, Folk Pop, Morning Coffee, and Today’s Singer/Songwriters. Her latest EP, In The Good Light, was recorded in Barcelona with Catalan collaborator Pau Figueres (one of Spain’s finest guitarists). Having recently made her home here in Gloucester, Hayley wowed audiences at the 2023 Singer/Songwriter Challenge at Machaca, winning first prize and making a memorable impression on the Cape Ann music scene.
The Sawyer Free Library is honored to have her perform for its first Sawyer Free Folk Showcase series.
For more information, visit the calendar at sawyerfreelibrary.org or 978-325-5571.
The Sawyer Free Library is eager to engage the community and gather valuable input for its 2025-2029 Strategic Plan.
Community Conversations will be held in over Zoom on Friday, June 2, from 6 to 7:30 p.m. and Tuesday, June 13, from 10 to 11:30 a.m. Click HERE for meeting zoom links! Or go to the calendar on SawyerFreeLibrary.org
Community Conversation In Person on Monday, June 5 from 2 to 3:30 p.m. at the Sawyer Free Library’s temporary space at 21 Main Street.
Gloucester Conversations will moderate these public forums, which are open to everyone to attend, and share their thoughts, ideas, and insights about how the 2025 Sawyer Free Library can best serve them and the greater community.
All Gloucester residents and visitors are also encouraged to fill out the Sawyer Free Library’s Community Input Survey. Regardless of how much or how little individuals use its services, everyone’s perspectives are welcome and encouraged.
The online survey is available online at www.SawyerFreeLibrary.org and will be open through July 1, 2023.
The Sawyer Free Library expects to analyze the results this summer and compile a summary report, which will be shared with the community when the Library Board of Trustees finalizes the new 2025-2029 Strategic Plan.
Community members can visit sawyerfreelibrary.org for more information and updates on ways to participate in the strategic planning process. The Library will also provide regular updates to keep community members informed and engaged throughout the process.
The SAWYER FREE LIBRARY is excited to be kicking off the community consultation for its new STRATEGIC PLAN: OUR LIBRARY. OUR FUTURE.
As part of the planning process, Sawyer Free Library wants to hear from the community and gather its valuable input. The 2025-2029 strategic planning process is especially important due to new opportunities that will be possible with the opening of the renovated, modernized and expanded 2025 Sawyer Free Library.
The Library will be hosting a series of 4 PUBLIC COMMUNITY CONVERSATIONS, and an ONLINE SURVEY and wants to hear from YOU! The Library encourages individuals from all backgrounds and age groups, community organizations, local businesses, and other stakeholders, to participate and provide their unique perspectives.
Community Conversations will be held IN PERSON on:
Community Conversations take place VIRTUALLY over Zoom:
Gloucester Conversations will moderate these public forums, which are open to everyone to attend, and share their thoughts, ideas, and insights about how the 2025 Sawyer Free Library can best serve them and the greater community.
All Gloucester residents and visitors are also encouraged to fill out the Sawyer Free Library‘s new COMMUNITY SURVEY. The online survey is available online at SawyerFreeLibrary.org and will be open through July 1, 2023.
Regardless of how much or how little individuals use its services, everyone’s perspectives are welcome and encouraged to participate! This survey is the first piece of research that will help to inform the new strategic plan and will be critical in influencing the Library’s priorities for the next five years.
The Sawyer Free Library expects to analyze the results this summer and compile a summary report, which will be shared with the community when the Library Board of Trustees finalizes the new 2025-2029 Strategic Plan. The Library’s most recent five-year strategic plan was completed in 2020, which runs through 2024.
Community members can visit sawyerfreelibrary.org for more information and updates on ways to participate in the strategic planning process. The Library will also provide regular updates to keep community members informed and engaged throughout the process.
As a part of May’s Memoir Month, the Sawyer Free Library is pleased to welcome local author Stella Nahatis on Thursday, May 11 at 5:30 to discuss her newly released memoir, Taxi to America: A Greek Orphan’s Adoption Journey. All are welcome to attend this special event at the Library located at 21 Main Street in downtown Gloucester. To register click HERE or for more information, visit, sawyerfreelibrary.org.
Stella’s journey from Thessaloniki, Greece, to America begins with a pre-dawn taxi ride that she and her sister share while the coffin holding a loved one rides along in the taxi’s trunk. Orphaned and separated from her younger sister “for her own good” as the culture dictated at the time, Stella ends up being adopted by a Greek couple that had emigrated to Boston, Massachusetts. At age 11, she overcomes multiple losses and cultural differences to find a place in her new homeland while finding ways to stay connected to those she loved in Greece.
This story of resilience and perseverance follows Stella’s journey of becoming an “Amerikanaki” and eventually reconnecting with her sister, who had stayed in Greece with her own set of adoptive parents. Even as Stella embraces her new life and culture in America, she rebuilds her loving relationship with her sister after an eight-year separation. Later in life, the sisters take another taxi ride together, this time to recover important details of their birth parents’ life stories that mirror the determination to survive and thrive that marks their own.
To register, or for more information, visit, sawyerfreelibrary.org.
A morning of unstructured play for little ones and their caregivers at SFL at 21 Main Street. Books and toys will be provided. Best suited for ages 0-2.
No registration needed. Questions? Contact: jvitale@sawyerfreelibrary.org
Sawyer Free Library will welcome EMILY FRANKLIN—poet and award-winning author who has appeared in the New York Times and the Boston Globe—for a discussion of her new book THE LIONESS OF BOSTON on Tuesday, May 9 at 6:00 pm. The event will be at the Sawyer Free Library at 21 Main Street in downtown Gloucester. Registration is required at sawyerfreelibrary.org. Please note that space is limited.
A novel of historical fiction, “The Lioness of Boston” tells about the life of daring visionary Isabella Stewart Gardner, who created an inimitable legacy in American art and transformed the city of Boston itself. It is a portrait of what society expected a woman’s life to be, shattered by a courageous soul who rebelled and was determined to live on her terms.
A misfit who befriended other outcasts to rise into art and intellectual society, Isabella used her own collections to open the now-famous Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum.
By the time Gardner opened her home as a museum in 1903 — to showcase her collection of old masters, antiques, and objects d’art — she was already well-known for scandalizing Boston’s polite society. But when Isabella first arrived in Boston in 1861, newly married and unsure of herself, she was puzzled by the frosty reception she received from stuffy bluebloods.
At first, she strived to fit in. Then, following tragedy and upper-society rejection, she set out on a new path.
Franklin describes how Isabella discovers her own outspoken nature and infiltrates the Harvard intellectual world. Then, as she explores the larger world, she meets artists and kindred spirits — Henry James, Oscar Wilde and John Singer Sargent. A worldwide traveler, she attends the first Impressionist exhibit, collects a wide range of paintings and objects, and forges an important relationship with Bernard Berenson, who will become her art dealer/confidante.
Freed by travel, Isabella explores the world of art, ideas,L and letters. From London and Paris to Egypt and Asia, she develops a keen eye for paintings and objects, and meets feminists ready to transform 19th-century thinking in the 20th century. Isabella becomes an eccentric trailblazer, painted by John Singer Sargent in a portrait of daring décolletage, and fond of such stunts as walking a pair of lions in the Boston Public Garden.
Franklin, whose award-winning work has appeared in The New York Times, the Boston Globe, Guernica, JAMA, and numerous literary magazines, has also been featured and read aloud on NPR and was named notable by the Association of Jewish Libraries. A lifelong visitor to the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, she lives outside of Boston with her family, including two dogs large enough to be lions.
Click HERE to register. Space is limited. Questions, 978-325-5500.
“The Lioness of Boston is a captivating story of a significant woman in Boston’s history who left that city a cultural legacy to last the ages. This beautiful novel will appeal to those who love masterful historical fiction, and stories of triumphant women who leave an indelible mark.” – New York Journal of Books
Join us on Tuesday, May 2 from 1:00 to 2:00 p.m. at Sawyer Free Library at 21 Main Street and learn the warning signs of a stroke and how to help prevent one from occurring by knowing the risk factors. The presenter is Chris S. Burke, MD who is a Neurologist and the Stroke Medical Director at Beverly and Addison Gilbert Hospitals. Register at SawyerFreeLibrary.org.
The Sawyer Free Library’s Board of Trustees is proud to announce that the renovated and expanded Library, set to open in 2025, will be the first public building on Cape Ann that generates renewable energy from solar and uses no fossil fuels for the building’s site energy. The 2025 Sawyer Free Library will serve as a leading example for the City of Gloucester and the Commonwealth in designing and operating a building for efficient consumption and generation of energy and water.
“The 2025 Sawyer Free Library makes Gloucester a leader in sustainable and renewable energy efforts. It is the first public building on Cape Ann serviced by an all-electric heat pump system powered by onsite renewable energy and puts Gloucester in the top 1% of public libraries across the Commonwealth,” stated the City of Gloucester Mayor Greg Verga. “This new library will be a major resource for our community for generations to come and set the standard for our future.”
“The 2025 Sawyer Free Library is an important demonstration in how to be responsible stewards of our environment and reduce our footprint on the planet,” said Mern Sibley, President of the Sawyer Free Library’s Board of Trustees. “By converting an inefficient fossil fuel powered building into a class-leading sustainable facility, we have an example and an inspiration for how to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and achieve carbon neutrality in our City.”
The 2025 Sawyer Free Library is designed to create a better and healthier City of Gloucester. As a LEED Gold building with enhanced sustainability features, the 2025 Sawyer Free Library is a leading example of actions that can be taken in the designing and operating of a building to protect climate and nature based on design principles that put people first, including sustainability, accessibility, health, and safety.
The project integrates three distinct structures with complete renovations of the Library’s existing 1976 and 1913 buildings and an expansion of the footprint with a new 14,000 sq. ft. addition towards School Street. Common building systems will serve the renovation and addition with advanced sustainability features and enhanced commissioning designed for efficient consumption, generation, and storage of energy and water that will result in environmental benefits for decades to come.
The 2025 Sawyer Free Library features state-of-the-art energy-efficient technologies, including all-electric HVAC systems powered by renewable energy, solar power panels, LED light fixtures, and high-efficiency smart lighting controls. The Library’s sustainability commitments are to reduce energy use intensity (EUI) from 85 to 30 or below, use as much renewable energy as possible, generate a minimum of 30kW solar energy onsite and perform enhanced commissioning to achieve targets post-occupancy.
The buildings will also feature efficient water use fixtures and a rainwater collection and irrigation system to maintain the Library’s native landscaping. These systems will help the Library reach its target of a minimum 30% decrease in overall water usage.
Aiming to reduce single-occupancy vehicle traffic in the city, the 2025 Sawyer Free Library will serve as a bike and E-bike hub for safe and sustainable transportation. It will also offer public Electric Vehicle Level 2 charging stations in the parking lot to be available 24 hours, 7 days a week, to support decarbonization efforts locally and across the Commonwealth.
“The 2025 Sawyer Free Library presents a holistic approach to sustainability. The combination of the building’s sustainability features, its green operations and educational programming, along with its capacity as a physical and social climate response center, present a powerful demonstration of how we can mitigate and adapt to climate change,” said Jenny Benedict, Library Director. “Every action we take individually and collectively toward making our environment resilient and sustainable is a step toward a net zero impact future. Together, we can preserve the one planet we have to live on for ourselves and future generations.”
To support the innovative sustainability infrastructure, and systems, the Library’s Green Building Operations Policy will be another vital part of the Library’s commitment to ongoing environmentally sustainable practices. Implementing a wide range of “green” practices will save energy, conserve water, reduce waste, and support healthy work and public spaces.
“Both the building and the Library’s associated educational programming are a model and an inspiration for the entire community and beyond of how we can reduce our dependence on fossil fuels,” stated Sawyer Free Library Capital Projects Chair Simon Paddock.
Sawyer Free Library’s mission is to be a place of learning, innovation and creativity, to nurture and strengthen the community. Programs at the 2025 Sawyer Free Library will help to foster a climate-literate community through online dashboard displays, demonstrations, and programs for adults and children focused on sustainable research, practices, and hands-on interactive experiences. These will range from lectures and field trips about the values of our local land and ocean ecosystem to workshops on how to change our impact on our environment.
The 2025 Sawyer Free Library is designed to make resource conservation part of the everyday experience while inspiring and educating the community about the importance of environmental stewardship and beauty. The building will exemplify what a 21st-century public library can and should be in terms of sustainability and also architecture, accessibility, use of natural resources and light, wayfinding, lines of sight, air quality, and public safety. It will boast new community spaces, including a 110-seat community room with state-of-the-art science presentation technology, a dedicated room for teens, and a digital maker space with a film production suite and a sound recording studio. Additional features will include a Library History Center, a quiet Reading Room, and a 16-seat Conference Room. The 2025 Sawyer Free Library will be an educational, cultural, civic, and community hub for learning, collaboration, and innovation. With its modern and sustainable design, the Library will provide an inspiring and sustainable environment for library patrons, staff, the community, and beyond.
The Sawyer Free Library Board is planning the groundbreaking for the 2025 Sawyer Free Library this September, with construction expected to take approximately eighteen months. The Library is currently operating in its temporary location at 21 Main Street in downtown Gloucester.
For those interested in learning more about how the 2025 Sawyer Free Library is building a sustainable future or ways to support these efforts, visit www.sawyerfreelibrary.org/sustainability.
Come and join us at the Sawyer Free Library at 21 Main Street in downtown Gloucester for some springtime literary fun on Thursday, April 20th.
From 5:15 – 6:15 p.m. local harpist Moira Kelly will be sharing festive musical entertainment while refreshments are provided.
Then at 6:15 p.m. local Irish author Robert T. McMaster will be introducing his latest novel, Rose of Glenkerry: A County Wicklow Mystery via Zoom, the virtual presentation will be broadcasted at SFL@ 21 Main Street location for all to enjoy.
Though registration is not required, the first three to fill out a registration form HERE will receive a free copy of the book! 
Questions? Visit SawyerFreeLibrary.org.
Cape Ann Community 