As construction continues on Plainsboro’s new library in the Village Center, progress in meeting fundraising goals for the library is showing that contributions large and small are making a difference.##M:[more]##
Officials have met their original fundraising target of approximately $1.5 million, and part of that came with the help of large donations like the recently-announced $50,”000 donation from Verizon, but also from community involvement.
When ideas for fundraising were first contemplated more than a year ago, four committees were formed to find all avenues of sourcing — small business, corporate, individual, and the community. And with the Change for Change campaign, part of the larger Build a Library, Leave Legacy fundraising campaign, already surpassing its target of $10,”000 way ahead of time, Plainsboro’s efforts have shown that community involvement really does make a difference go a long way.
As of August 1, $10,”158.08 has been collected from the vortex at the library — where patrons, mostly children, can drop in their coins, and watch the coins race around to the center, demonstrating Kepler’s law of planetary motion — and many other community organizations and local businesses, who collected their own change for the cause. Local stores, like It’s A Grind, Wireless and You, and others, including nearby schools, set up their own collection boxes and drives, to help collect coins. Others contributed donations from sales.
Now to celebrate meeting the goal way before the library opened, a Splash Party will be held at the Can Do Fitness Club at Forrestal Village on Saturday, August 23, from 7 to 9 p.m. And the target has been raised to $20,”000.
“We really have been very successful in coordinating an effort that didn’t overlook anybody,” says Library Director Jinny Baeckler. She attributed the fundraising success for the library to good organization from the start. It also helps that the library is very well-appreciated, she says. “It would be much harder if you didn’t have an institution that people didn’t like or didn’t support.”
Mayor Peter Cantu says he is confident the Leave a Legacy, Build a Library campaign will reach the newer target of $2 million it set halfway through this year’s fundraising efforts.
On the corporate side, the first installment of the Verizon donation came earlier this month, when Mark Bocchieri, Verizon’s director of external affairs, presented Mayor Peter Cantu with a check for $24,”000. Cantu says township officials and those involved in the fundraising campaign have been talking to Verizon for some time.
“Generally, we’ve identified folks we feel have expressed an interest, and we’re following up on them,” Cantu says. “We did a very substantial outreach.”
“I suspect we’re going to see additional contributions coming, and some may be substantial,” Cantu said when asked whether he expected any other major donations.
Cantu points out that people, in general, have been very generous when it comes to donating to the project.
“It’s absolutely phenomenal the support we’ve gotten from large corporations, foundations, and many wonderful individuals,” said Baeckler.
The $12.4 million library project broke ground in December, after a contract was awarded to H&S Mechanical of Elizabeth. It will be a three-story, 34,”000-square foot building. The library will hold 125,”000 volumes and provide informal reading areas, display space for art, quiet study rooms, 40 computer stations, a children’s section with a greatly expanded science/computer center, a local history room, administrative offices, storage space, and community meeting rooms. In addition, the library will feature a health education center and independent study rooms.
Meanwhile, construction crews finished pouring the slab for the basement and ground level floors, and residents can now see the structural steel for the building in place on site.
Donation to New Hospital.
In other fundraising news, Princeton residents Bob and Leslie Doll have donated $1 million to support the construction of the chapel at the new University Medical Center at Princeton (UMCP) being built in Plainsboro. Hospital officials have been trying to raise $115 million in support of the new $441 million hospital, which is expected to be completed in 2011.
