The town of Norwood, a working-class suburb of Boston, held its 11th annual street fair in early September 2013, and I had an opportunity once again to volunteer at our Christian Science Reading Room’s table.
In real estate it is said that location, location, location is everything, and our Reading Room has a prime spot on Main Street, where there is an abundance of business and pedestrian traffic. The day of the fair, Main Street is closed to traffic, and people of all ages crowd the street, eager to take from the tables lining it the informational leaflets and free samples of products offered by the churches and businesses in town. With food, live entertainment, carnival rides, and the opportunity to have good-old-fashioned face time with neighbors and friends, the fair always promises to be a celebration of community.
This year our Reading Room librarian decided to keep our table simple and offer free copies of The Christian Science Monitor Weekly, rather than a potpourri of products from the Reading Room. Thanks to generous contributions from our church members and from faithful attendees of our services, we were able to purchase 150 copies of the latest issue to give away. (The previous year we had ordered 75.) By about 12:30 that afternoon, we had one copy left and had to resort to giving away gently used copies donated by some of our members!
