Noel Wien Library's Festival of Trees opens Dec. 1 with trees from community partners

Noel Wien Library in Fairbanks will open this year's Festival of Trees with an evening event from 5:30 to 7:30 pm Tuesday, Dec. 1, in the library's Active Learning Lab and Auditorium.

Community partners are decorating trees for a library grove meant to showcase their work in the community, according to the library's event listing. At the opening, visitors can meet those partners, drink hot chocolate, try activities and stroll through the trees. The event is open to all ages, including adults, teens, children and families.

The trees stay up from Wednesday, Dec. 2, through Thursday, Dec. 31, the library's festival listing says. Visitors can pick up a scavenger hunt at the circulation desk, explore the decorated trees and then turn in the hunt for a chance to win prizes from the community partners.

Noel Wien is the main branch of the Fairbanks North Star Borough library system, which also runs the North Pole Branch Library and a Bookmobile that makes monthly stops at Becker Ridge, Ester, Goldstream, Salcha, Two Rivers and Fox. The borough's library page says Noel Wien averages 1,080 patrons a day, about 366,000 a year.

The library recently went through a $14 million renovation, with $1.5 million in private money raised through the Fairbanks Library Foundation, according to a borough comprehensive plan report. The report describes the foundation as a nonprofit fundraising and advocacy partner of the borough's public libraries.