THORNTON NEWS
by Cathie Miller

Its time to be planning your Valentine's Day surprise for your sweetie. How about taking them to the annual Valentine's Dance sponsored by the Thornton Area Action Committee? It will be held upstairs at the Thornton Community Arena on Saturday, February 1oth starting at 8 p.m. For just $12.50 per person you can dance the night away to the sounds of DJ "Keep Them Dancing." There will be spot dances and door prizes and a full lunch served at 11 a.m. For tickets and information you can call Terry at 458-9054 or me at 458-0869.

The Lt. Governor of Ontario has announced a province wide book drive to provide surplus books to native communities especially those in Northern Canada. During the month of January you can drop off books at any OPP Detachment in Ontario. Maybe its time to clean out those closets and make some room for yourself and pass on the pleasure of reading a good book to someone else.

The Essa Historical Society will hold their monthly meeting on Saturday, January 27 at the Thornton Library starting at 1:30 p.m. The topic will be show & tell; and roll call is bring your favourite oldie. For more information call Olive Lee at 458-9971.

Story Time for Preschoolers begins next week at the library. If you haven't signed up yet there's still time. You can choose from either Monday or Tuesday mornings from 10 until 11 a.m. The Monday dates are January 22 & 29 and February 5 & 12 or the Tuesday dates begin January 23 & 30 and February 6 & 13. Each four week session costs $2 per child and registration is required. For information about Story Time or any of the services and programs the library offers you can call them at 458-2549.

January 27 is Family Literacy Day. Visit the ABC Canada website www.abc-canada.org for interesting information about literacy, games, special offers and more. If you click on the Family Literacy tab they are featuring a contest for one lucky Canadian family to win a visit from Robert Munsch at their community's Literacy Day. Check on line for details.

For those of us who still have Christmas trees and don't know what to do with them the Christmas tree pickup in Essa is scheduled for the week of January 22nd. That is this coming Monday. Your tree must be at the side of the road by 7 a.m. on Monday and the trees will be collected during the week. The tree must not be bagged, have any decorations left on it or frozen in the snow bank or they will not take it.

As always, if you have any news, meetings, anniversaries or special occasions, I'd be happy to write about them. You can email me at thorntonnews@rogers.com or call me at (705) 458-0869 or drop it off at 25 Robert Street. Bye for now…..