Visit the Columbia City Celebration, buy a book and support the community library

The Columbia City Celebration allows for community members to mingle on a summer day, enjoy entertainment and buy used books that will benefit the Columbia City Community Library.

Jazzmin Love, who is helping plan the annual free event at Columbia City Elementary School, said the purpose behind the celebration is to help fund the library, which offers free services to residents of Columbia County.

“They do that for free, so the funding really comes from the events that they do,” Love said, noting, “This is a major book sale.”

The celebration, which runs from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m., Saturday, Aug. 10, offers fun for the entire family, including a handmade quilt raffle featuring a queen-size quilt crafted by library director Cathy Lundberg.

The celebration kicks off with a traditional strawberry pancake breakfast from 7 a.m. to 10 a.m. at the Columbia City Community Hall.

If you’re a vintage car enthusiast, the Show and Shine classic car show is outside in the school field. All vehicles are welcome and there’s a $25 registration fee. Dash plaques and awards will be presented.

When visiting the car show, listen to great music from The Decades, who will play popular hit songs from years past.

Craft vendors and a Kid Zone will be available for everyone. Also, the Willie V’s pit-smoked barbecue food cart will support the Elks Veterans Bunker in St. Helens.

Love said there’s a new addition to this year’s Columbia City Celebration, a history tour of the town.

“There’s a volunteer historian,” she said. “He has put together a tour that he’s going to narrate. CC Rider has offered one of their shuttles to ride people around so that they can see the different spots as he talks about them. That’s going to be quite cool.”

And if you miss the riding history tour, a walking tour is in the works.

“I don’t know if it will be ready by then," Love said, "but it will be available sometime after that.”

A highlight of the annual event is the book sale.

“It’s actually very important because that is the predominant source of funding for facilitating library services,” Love said. “The books are very inexpensive. They have probably over 5,000 hard and soft-covered books, plus audio books available for people to pick through.”

Love says the event is great for the entire family.

“It’s definitely a whole family experience, there’s something for all ages there,” she said, noting that craft vendors will be set up in the gym area. “Everything that they’re selling are things that they have made.”

Love said of Columbia City, “I think it’s just a hidden gem that most people don’t know about.”