Patten Free Library launches month-long gift card raffle for Bath support

A $10 ticket at Patten Free Library can help keep Bath residents using children’s programs, adult learning, technology access and community space, while sending winners home with gift cards to local businesses. The library’s Gift Card Calendar Raffle was on sale through the end of May, with daily winners drawn throughout June and every ticket eligible for every drawing.

Tickets were priced at $10 each, five for $40 or 15 for $100, a structure meant to make the fundraiser accessible for one-off participation and larger support. Tickets were available at the library’s main circulation desk and online. Development director Samantha Ricker said the raffle was meant to let residents back both the library and nearby independent businesses at the same time, a practical fit for a downtown institution that sees itself as part civic service, part local gathering place.

The proceeds were set to support the library’s broader work, including programs for all ages, access to technology and other resources, and the public spaces that make Patten Free Library a daily destination in Bath. That need is grounded in the library’s finances as well. Patten Free Library says it is a private 501(c)(3) organization, with fiscal year 2024-2025 operating revenue coming from municipal support at 31%, endowment and trusts at 42%, the annual fund at 14%, other sources at 7%, Friends of Patten Free Library at 5%, and fines, fees and other income at 1%. The library also says it benefits from federal funds through the Maine State Library consortium and the Institute of Museum and Library Services.

The fundraiser lands in a city of 8,817 people, according to the U.S. Census Bureau’s July 2024 estimate, where 25.7% of residents are age 65 and older. Bath had 8,766 residents in the 2020 census, a size that helps explain why a public library can still function as one of the city’s most visible shared spaces. Patten Free Library also receives municipal support from the City of Bath and the towns of Arrowsic, Georgetown, West Bath and Woolwich, underscoring how far its reach extends across Sagadahoc County.

The library’s local roots go back to 1887, when Bath philanthropist Galen Moses offered $10,000 for a new building on the condition that the private subscription association become a free public library. History materials also say Bath-born architect George Edward Harding offered his design free to his hometown. That legacy still matters in a city that the Bath Historical Society calls the seat of Sagadahoc County and a place built on shipbuilding, and in a downtown that Main Street Bath works to preserve and promote. The raffle adds another round of small-ticket giving to that civic equation.