Your Library Connection
How do you spell LIBRARY?
The fundraising process for a new library facility has been a fascinating and eye-opening experience for me. The process is not over (more capital campaign fundraising plus on-going fundraising is inevitable in our future). A big event that I hope will mark the achievement of the library’s minimum capital campaign goal ($3 million) in the near future is Spellbound. This adult spelling bee, silent auction, live auction, and buffet supper will be held Jan. 28th. Tickets are for sale for $20 at the library until Jan. 19th or until we run out of tickets.
When organizers began to meet about the spelling bee five months ago the conversation went something like this…
”I want this to be a fundraiser. I don’t think we should go to all this work and not have any financial benefit for the library.”
“But the event needs to be a friend-raiser, with people getting together and celebrating the fact that we will have a new library.”
How did we settle this difference of opinion? We decided to do both…a fun event open to the community at a reasonable price and a money maker for the new library. I think the group did a wonderful job of meshing both goals and the event will prove to be both a fundraiser and a friend-raiser. I look forward to the event, a fun community celebration of all that has been and will be accomplished in a new library.
The pivot point for all of this is really community. The library is for the community, the library is being built primarily with money given freely by members of the community, the spelling bee is a celebration of the community. If you’ve been keeping up with the stories and snippets about the library in the last six months you’ve heard phrases like these…community center, read and relax, study space, technology, community room, browse, a place for all ages. Each of these phrases refers to what the community will have and do in their new library facility.
It is a wonderful thing to get donations ranging from pennies given by children to hundreds of thousands of dollars given by individuals, businesses, and the City of Independence. The scope of this project and the way people have reached out to give what they can has been phenomenal. The community really came together and we will have a new library in late spring or summer of ’08 that will be a testament to this fact.
I hope to see 349 others (350 tickets printed…I have mine, do you have yours?) at Spellbound on Jan. 28th who have come to celebrate the success of the library campaign and to celebrate community. I look forward to the evening, to seeing local people compete for the spelling championship trophy, to seeing the signed books and art pieces being auctioned, and to socializing with you…the people who have made this happen. So come to Spellbound and celebrate community with us. I won’t be in the spelling bee, but if you ask me how to spell library, I’ll say – C-O-M-M-U-N-I-T-Y!
Other Building Project Articles:
Donation Form
Fundraising Event - SPELLBOUND!
Library Campaign Passes $2.5 Million
Library Campaign Awarded CAT
Grant!
How Can I Help the Library Reach Goal?
Answers to Capital Campaign Questions
Frequently Asked Questions and Thoughts about the
New Library
Building Plans Detailed
Elevations and Floor Plan
Campaign Chair Selected
Site and
Architect
Children's
Area
Top 10 Reasons
a New Public Library is Needed
Young Adult
Area
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