ROCKLAND – A local coffee shop and bookstore has joined other small businesses along the Maine coast to collect books and donations for the library destroyed by fire on Swans Island on July 24.

Patrick Reilley and his wife, Susanne Ward, owners of Rock City Books and Coffee cafe at 328 Main St., have volunteered their shop to act as a repository for a collection of books and donations.

“We’re going to be a collection point for books and donations,” Reilley said Monday. “The greatest need is for kids’ books.”

He said there is a grass-roots attempt to get the collection going up and down the coast.

“We had a concert Friday night, and one of the fellows in our band talked it up,” he said.

An account has been established at the Bar Harbor branch of The First bank. Checks could be made out to the Swans Island Library Fund and left at the Rock City cafe.

Lightning is believed to be the cause of the fire that burned the 100-year-old library to the ground. Other than books, DVDs and other library items, the building also housed the local historical collection of artifacts and served as a meeting place.

gchappell@bangordailynews.net

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