Campaign committee members Ron Knight, Drew Costanza and Meg Segrue (left to right) pose with President of the Library board of trustees Bruce Peckham far right. Photo by Chris Carosa
“Amazingly, our community has generously paid off nearly 80% of our library note. At this point, we have an additional $105,000 commitment to the Town of Mendon that we are seeking to raise by fall of 2016.” Ron Knight’s aforementioned quote can be found on the Mendon Public Library’s page, “The Finish Line.” It refers to the Herculean fundraising hurdle that community members have already helped the library leap in its effort to find a new home. The new facility cost $2.4 million to build, and when all the grants and bonds were counted, the library still had a $550,000 commitment to the Town of Mendon.
Many saw this gap as an insurmountable obstacle, but not Knight. “I never felt that the Library campaign was immense, but certainly a significant challenge,” he recently told The Sentinel. “What motivated me was the significant role a Library plays in a community and the character and values of the people of the town of Mendon. This thought played out in the form of the number of individual donors and the performance of the Library in achieving its program and operational goals. This is heart-felt, and I and the Capital Campaign Committee never gave up”
Indeed, to date approximately $444,000 of the $550,000 has already been raised from private donations. In addition, the library has also received other donations which have been restricted to other areas unrelated to paying off the $550,000. These gifts are often a sign of strong institutional support. For example, many colleges and universities generally receive restricted gifts even as capital campaigns are underway. In our own community, Mendon’s St. Catherine’s Church received just such a gift more than a decade ago while Father James Lawlor was pastor. That gift established at $100,000 endowment which was restricted for use of ad hoc community events and could not be used for ongoing operations and any budgetary short-falls.
The library now has entered the finale of this decade long process. “The Finish Line” project is the last fundraising project of the library’s new facility project, with its goal of $105,000 to finish paying off what remains of the original $550,000 gap in the project’s original funding. The campaign began in late April and will continue until the end of August. Currently, the project is being headed by Heart of Our Town Chair Ron Knight, as well as the Heart of Our Town Capital Campaign Committee members Deric West, Drew Costanza, and Meg Segrue. They have raised an approximate $7,000, leaving $98,000 left of the campaign’s goal.
Throughout the campaign, the leadership of Ron Knight has been invaluable. “Ron has been instrumental in the Capital Campaign from the beginning over five years ago,” says Segrue. “He has worked tirelessly with many Capital Campaign volunteers through the years procuring funds for our new Library and bond payment. He has been the one person who has steadily worked on this project for the Town of Mendon and never gave up. It has been a privilege to get to know him and work with his positive work ethic.”
Costanza echoes these sentiments. He says, “I have been on the Capital campaign from almost the outset of the effort years ago.. It has been such a pleasure to work with such a great and natural leader like Ron. He never allowed us to become discouraged and not only was always optimistic, but he constantly kept driving us into different directions to ensure our success. It was certainly a team effort, but the committee would never have likely been half as successful in its efforts over these past years had we not been so capably led by Ron. He is a class act and this entire community owes him much for his non-stop efforts on behalf of our new Library!”
According to The Friends of Mendon Public Library mailing material, if every household donates a mere $26, the fundraising goal will be met. Our local hometown paper, The Sentinel, has partnered with the library to aid in the fundraising effort by offering an optional new or renewed subscription to those donors who donate at least $100 (the reward will begin at the end of the fundraising campaign in August). Additionally, there are a variety of rewards for plaques and naming opportunities, details about can be found on http://mendonlibrary.org/.
The completion of this campaign will mark the end of the library’s Phase 1 program: building and paying for the new facility. In the future, the library hopes to implement Phase 2: connecting the current building with the previous one. That plan has not been voted on, and while that is the direction that the library hopes to go in, it is focused on completing Phase 1 within the time perimeters of the current campaign. Any cash donations can be made in the library, while any check donations can be made out to “Friends of Mendon Public Library”. Finally, donations can be made online at the library’s website.
Bruce Peckham, President of the library’s Board of Trustees, sums it up nicely when he says, “When the Mendon Public Library opened the doors to its new facility five years ago, I was essentially a newly minted trustee with many lessons to learn regarding library stewardship. Since that time, I learned the most important lesson of them all – that a library is people. There are those who come to avail themselves of our services and opportunities. These people, our customers, reward us, the library, with their acceptance, encouragement, and feedback about how we do as a service institution. Then there are those people who stand and support the service providers. These friends and neighbors work diligently and unselfishly to raise funds, donate monies so necessary in these tight financial times, and volunteer their time in the purest definition of the term. Then there are the dedicated members of our staff. These people make the library machine go. They do it with a warm greeting as you walk through the door and a sincere “How can I help you?” And of course, as a tax-supported entity, we benefit from that small group of elected and appointed municipal officials whose ongoing assistance and direction is essential to our success. And there is my learned lesson. As we proceed into 2016, we, the trustees, will work diligently to perform as responsible stewards of this library institution in respect and gratitude for the community that comprises the Mendon Public Library.”
