Tuesdays and Thursdays, 12:30 P.M. to 1:30 P.M., Starting August 19, 2025, TWICE a week for eight weeks at the Olive Free Library.
Led by Grammy-nominated percussionist Tomas Martin Lopez, this talented quartet fuses Afro-Caribbean Latin Jazz, Bossa Nova, and Samba into a vibrant, rhythm-rich experience.
This is a weaving class for adults who want to create some amazing fiber crafts!
Linda Schultz will be here to lead us all in a great activity.
Free class, sign up in advance! Limited spaces available.
This free workshop, led by three local death doulas, offers a reflective and heart-centered approach to aging and end-of-life.
Through guided conversation and writing, participants will engage with their own mortality and the aging process in both practical and symbolic ways.
10am - 11:30am Mon. Sept 8, Oct. 6 & Nov 10. Please commit to attending all 3 sessions, as this program builds on the prior session. Space is limited. You must register for this event.
Book It for the Olive Free Library!
5K walk/run Saturday September 13, 2025, 9:00 am start time.
Join us for a 5K walk/run to benefit our wonderful library nestled in the Catskill mountains. Our run will take place at the gorgeous Ashokan Reservoir Promenade with the most beautiful views around. It's mostly flat, with one uphill at the start of the course, and much of the route is closed to traffic.
Gentlemen Caller is a talented duo of indie folk musicians Jon B. Woodin and Jude Roberts. Accomplished songwriters and multi-instrumentalists, they blend compelling melodies and rich harmonies reminiscent of Simon & Garfunkel, all while delivering with wit, humor, and impeccable style.
This month we will learn how to make a quilted place mat!
Sign up soon, LIMITED SPACE!
No sewing machine needed!
Local author Gail Straub has lived in her home perched on the edge of the Ashokan Reservoir for forty-four years. And she has also travelled and worked all over the world. Join Gail for a book reading and signing about her critically acclaimed new book , Home Inside the Globe: Embracing Our Common Humanity.
Ulster County Career Center (UlsterWorks.com) invites you to attend hands-on, instructor-led sessions. FREE of charge!
You Are Invited to the Grand Opening of the Olive Free Library’s new Shokan Branch.
Come see our new library branch! Attend our ribbon cutting! Get your library card!
Music, Food and Celebration!
For countless generations, the Lenape People relied on the Hudson River and its tributaries for their survival.
Join us for this presentation by ethnoecologist Justin Wexler and learn about the day to day life of local Native Peoples five centuries ago.
If you are thinking of trying a new hobby or art style, come and check it out! You may find all you need to get started. Free of charge!
Come and Experience the vibrational healing of the Symphonic Gong.
This month we will learn how to make a quilted table runner!
Sign up soon, LIMITED SPACE!
No sewing machine needed!
Join us for this classic movie starring Marilyn Monroe, Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon. Feel free to bring snacks and drinks.
Henry H. Sapoznik is a five-time Grammy-nominated producer/performer of over fifty recordings and author of the award-winning book Klezmer! Jewish Music from Old World to Our World.
Ulster County Career Center (UlsterWorks.com) invites you to attend hands-on, instructor-led sessions. FREE of charge!
Calling all first responders!
Please come to the library on 10/28/25 for coffee and treats as a thanks for all of your help.
An 8 week series with Kathy Carey focused on: muscular strength, endurance & toning, flexibility, balance, coordination, cardiovascular health, bone density & joint health.
$6/per class
Pauline Palkovic will teach us to mend our much loved items with decorative and visible stitching in this hands-on workshop.
An 8 week series with Kathy Carey focused on: muscular strength, endurance & toning, flexibility, balance, coordination, cardiovascular health, bone density & joint health.
$6/per class
Stumbling Blocks is a powerful intergenerational memoir by Jennifer Krebs that explores her family’s journey from Nazi Germany to rural America. Blending personal history, Jewish identity, and emotional reflection, the book traces her father’s memories of growing up under the Third Reich and her own coming-of-age in small-town New York as the daughter of a survivor.
This month we will learn how to make a key fob or continue with last month’s project (quilted table runner), if you haven’t completed it. !
Sign up soon, LIMITED SPACE!
No sewing machine needed!
An 8 week series with Kathy Carey focused on: muscular strength, endurance & toning, flexibility, balance, coordination, cardiovascular health, bone density & joint health.
$6/per class
Ulster County Career Center (UlsterWorks.com) invites you to attend hands-on, instructor-led sessions. FREE of charge!
An 8 week series with Kathy Carey focused on: muscular strength, endurance & toning, flexibility, balance, coordination, cardiovascular health, bone density & joint health.
$6/per class
An 8 week series with Kathy Carey focused on: muscular strength, endurance & toning, flexibility, balance, coordination, cardiovascular health, bone density & joint health.
$6/per class
An 8 week series with Kathy Carey focused on: muscular strength, endurance & toning, flexibility, balance, coordination, cardiovascular health, bone density & joint health.
$6/per class
An 8 week series with Kathy Carey focused on: muscular strength, endurance & toning, flexibility, balance, coordination, cardiovascular health, bone density & joint health.
$6/per class
An 8 week series with Kathy Carey focused on: muscular strength, endurance & toning, flexibility, balance, coordination, cardiovascular health, bone density & joint health.
$6/per class
Come on in! Join us for a fun, no-pressure beginner watercolor class. We will be creating postcard size mini-paintings.
Be sure to register.
All materials will be supplied.
Class for teens and adults!
Learn all about how colors are important to reptiles in this interactive program that’s fun and educational! Meet lizards, snakes and turtles from around the world! Get an opportunity to see, touch and take pictures with these amazing species!
Companies like Fortis treat our energy system like it’s their piggy bank. Their subsidiaries like Central Hudson charge high rates and do little to prioritize our needs. It's time to take our power back and replace Central Hudson with a publicly-owned utility that charges low rates and invests in a resilient grid to provide energy as a public good.
Join Kathy for a continuation of her TaiChi for Health and Wellness class.
This is a mixed level class.
$6 per Class
Join Kathy for a continuation of her TaiChi for Health and Wellness class.
This is a mixed level class.
$6 per Class
Join Kathy for a continuation of her TaiChi for Health and Wellness class.
This is a mixed level class.
$6 per Class
Join Kathy for a continuation of her TaiChi for Health and Wellness class.
This is a mixed level class.
$6 per Class
A jazz cabaret duo whose unique vocal blend and fresh arrangements breathe new life into classics spanning jazz, Broadway, and the Great American Songbook.
This group will:
share experiences in becoming published
getting work promoted
self publishing
getting an agent
finding a publisher without an agent
not publishing and writing for ourselves and our families
Enjoy a walk along the Kanape, and learn about mushrooms from John Michelotti of Catskill Fungi! Limited Space, sign up in advance.
Join Kathy for a continuation of her TaiChi for Health and Wellness class.
This is a mixed level class.
$6 per Class
Let the music guide your soul! By using music as your muse, you will create a visual depiction of notes, harmonies, beats, high and low notes, and rhythms with subconscious line. Continuing, you’ll be guided through the addition of color defining shapes enhancing your musical masterpiece. Letting loose and moving without predetermining the direction helps you be more flexible and encourages you to begin looking for opportunities in unlikely places. Intensive listening helps you to be mindful and to fully enjoy sensory experiences at a deeper level. Limited Space, please sign up in advance.
Join Kathy for a continuation of her TaiChi for Health and Wellness class.
This is a mixed level class.
$6 per Class
This program focuses on presenting locational data of potential Native American sacred sites within the Catskills and surrounding regions, in order to discern patterns in their construction techniques, environmental positioning, and event-specific structural alignments related to sky observation. Presented by author Glenn Kreisberg.
Join the Nutty Scientists for a great interactive science show and sign up for our summer reading program. Great for the whole family! No need to sign up, show up and have a good time!
Join Kathy for a continuation of her TaiChi for Health and Wellness class.
This is a mixed level class.
Fridays 11 a.m. Starting June 13 through August 8
$6 per Class
“Keepers of the Light: Women Lighthouse Keepers of the Hudson River”
Women have kept the lights since the earliest days of the Hudson River lighthouses. Starting in the 1830s until automation in the 1950s, nearly a dozen women were official lighthouse keepers on the Hudson River, several with careers of over forty years. Others were unjustly turned out from their posts. Some weren’t official keepers at all, but did the duties nonetheless. Learn about the careers and personal lives of these female keepers, what it took to be a lighthouse keeper, and why the Hudson River had more women lighthouse keepers than most places in the United States. Emma Cariello from Hudson River Maritime Museum will be presenting.
Ulster County Older Adults Empowerment Council presents: Gotcha! Beware off Scams/See the Red Flags! Case studies in Financial Exploitation and how to prepare. Please register and join us at the Olive Free Library for a Zoom event.
Join us for our ANNUAL LIBRARY FAIR! This year will be bigger and more family friendly than ever! We will have our plant sale & book sale to benefit our Friends Group. We have a juggler, Jester Jim, coming to give us a great show, juggling knifes and so much more. Music, Kids activities and food! Tettas will be here serving lunch & snacks. And closing out the day we will have an author coming in in to discuss their book. More details to come!
Hot Wrk Ensemble is a saxophone/woodwind and percussion trio founded in 2020 by award-winning musicians J Brooks Marcus (J Why), Lois Hicks-Wozniak and Brad Hubbard, explores, deconstructs and wrks out concepts of traditional chamber music and the concert experience by engaging communities to interact with and partake in the creation process. Performances can include everything from contemporary art music, jazz, world music styles to early Baroque, and arrangements of Dolly Parton and The Beatles. Expect the unexpected! The Hot Wrk Ensemble is performing a free concert at Olive Free Library, West Shokan, NY. This project is made possible with funds from the Statewide Community Regrants Program, a regrant program of the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature and administered by Arts Mid-Hudson.
Unwind and release tension with guided relaxation techniques. Through reflective journaling, gentle movement, breathing exercises, and meditation this workshop is the perfect opportunity allowing you to center yourself and find a sense of peace and balance. The knowledge and tools you acquire here will also serve you well in your day-to-day life. This program is co-hosted by the Amenia Free Library, Millbrook Library, Olive Free Library, Staatsburg Library, Stanford Free Library, and Stone Ridge Public Library. Please sign up in advance to receive the link.
Come in and hear all about pollinator gardens and the good they do. Hear from several speakers about how you can get involved and keep the gardens growing. More details to come.
Last year your generous contributions enabled the library to make much-needed capital improvements and create several community events:
New sofas and chairs
New book-drop box at the library entrance
New bookcases for The Peck Collection
Community events including The Murder Mystery Supper Club Spring Fundraiser, Community Yard Sale, Library Fair, Garden Tour, Olive Day booth, and volunteer support for the Library Holiday Fair
A book release celebration for two books by local authors: Melissa McHugh's "Town of Olive", and Kate McGloughlin's "Do Good"
Brought to the Olive Free Library by Health Option NY. Topics covered will be : Common scams targeting seniors.
How to spot and report fraud.
Resources, including the National Elder Fraud Hotline.
Steps to safeguard personal information and finances.
Chrissy will be here to teach us how to make a tote bag with a zipper. Please sign up in advance, and let us know if you need to borrow a machine or if you will bring your own.
Get ready for our next Music Café performance featuring Triad. Enjoy live music, homemade supper and beverages in a cozy, coffeehouse setting with neighbors and friends. No reservations, just come by and enjoy!
Our third and final Piano Plus artist will be Marilyn Crispell. Marilyn Crispell is a graduate of the New England Conservatory of Music where she studied classical piano and composition, and has been a resident of Woodstock, New York since 1977 when she came to study and teach at the Creative Music Studio. She discovered jazz through the music of John Coltrane, Cecil Taylor and other contemporary jazz players and composers. Her program will be mostly improvised. Buy tickets here
Julia Haines will be teaching mini harp lessons for people of all ages! Please sign up in advance, there are limited harps. In order to allow as many people as possible the opportunity to try a harp lesson, please only sign up for 2 slots total from now through July. Adults should attempt to sign up for the first slot at each Pop-Up, kids and families for the second session. All guardians should remain with their child whether or not they are trying the harp. This is a free program "This project is made possible with funds from the Statewide Community Regrants Program, a regrant program of the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature and administered by Arts Mid-Hudson."
Join us for our bi-annual clothing swap! Please bring items in for the swap from April 26- May 1st for sorting. There is no need to bring items to the swap to come and shop, we always have plenty! Great for the whole family!
