Yachties give library its biggest gift ever

An elderly American yachtie couple have given the single biggest financial donation ever received by Whangarei District Library.

Carl and Mary Leonard, who live for six months of the year on their schooner Annabelle in Whangarei's Town Basin, have given $25,000 to the library.

The amount stunned library manager Pauline Rose, who "almost fell off her chair" when they went to see her, out of the blue one day in February.

Sensing it might seem too good to be true, Mrs Leonard said soon after, when the couple were sailing to the Bay of Islands, she wrote to Mrs Rose to confirm the donation, in case the librarian thought they were leaving the country.

Mrs Leonard, 94, and Mr Leonard, 81, say their reason for giving the money is simple: they want to repay the city they've come to think of as home.

"We have reaped the benefits of living here and we just would like to give back something to the community," Mrs Leonard said.

The obviously fit couple had been visiting Whangarei almost every year since 1972.

Apart from the occasional trip back to their motor-home in North Carolina, nowadays the Leonards spend half the year in or around Whangarei, and the other half at their Brisbane flat.

- NORTHERN ADVOCATE (WHANGAREI)