Friends Offer Memorial Day Storytime During Family Picnic Event

The Friends of Mendon Public Library will host a special storytime at the Flags, Families and Fun Memorial Day family picnic. The event will be held on Monday, May 28, in Rotary Park on N. Main St. in Honeoye Falls, immediately following the parade and cemetery service.

Free picnic admission includes music by two bands and the 1:30 p.m. storytime at the Friends of the Mendon Library tent. Food and games will be available for purchase, and all proceeds from the event will benefit the new Veterans’ Memorial planned for Honeoye Falls.

Books that may be read during this special storytime include The Memorial Day Surprise by Theresa Martin Golding and The Wall by Eve Bunting and Ronald Himler.

The Memorial Day Surprise features a young boy whose mother tells him that the Memorial Day parade will include a big surprise, but it isn’t the bands or the candy. In the end, the boy discovers that the surprise is far more wonderful–it’s that his grandfather is a veteran in the parade.

The Wall is about a boy who travels to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial with his father to seek out his grandfather’s name.

Photos of Completed Sidewalk and Library Drive, Updated Sign

Thanks to Bud Smith, Tom Vorhees and their team for their fine craftsmanship in completing the retaining wall,  sidewalk and driveway between Main Street and Mendon Public Library.

Read more about the project in this previous post.

Click to enlarge

Thanks also to Paul Lonobile, who recently updated Main Street library sign to reflect that the new building so long planned as phase 1 of the new library project is no longer “coming soon” but, in fact, built. Paul also repaired the fire number.

Thanking our Honorable Knight

Ron Knight and his wife, Judy, with books from the collection donated to Mendon Public Library in his honor.

The Friends of Mendon Public Library have donated a collection of history books to Mendon Public Library in honor of Capital Campaign Chairman Ron Knight.

Knight, who volunteers his time to lead the “Heart of our Town” capital campaign, chose that the collection be books about the making of America, covering the period between the Revolutionary War and the Civil War.

A desserts reception at the library celebrated Knight’s key role in getting the project out to bid last spring, as well as his work on private fund-raising for the new library–both the new building currently being constructed as phase 1, and the renovation of the historic and 1974 buildings planned for phase 2.

In accepting the gift of the collection and a framed photo memento of this time in library history, Knight said his commitment to the fund-raising necessary to complete both phases of the project was unwavering. He asked: “Why I am I doing this?” and then answered that it’s about small children learning to read, about teens having a safe place to gather when school’s not in session, about access to the Internet for job-seekers, and about offering an accessible place of knowledge and ideas for everyone in the community, including senior and people with disabilities.

Please join in thanking Ron in your comments. (And if you want information on making a campaign pledge, please call the library at 624-6067.)

Volunteer Q&A: Ron Knight, Capital Campaign Chairman

I’m planning to do a series of posts throughout our new library project about people that are volunteering their time and making a difference. There are a lot of contributors to this effort! Read below about Ron Knight, chairman of the capital campaign committee and then, in the comments, nominate someone I should write about next!

Q: What got you interested in the Mendon Library project?

Ron Knight

I first learned about the project from Peter Pearson, the consultant from Library Strategies in St. Paul, Minn., hired by the Friends of Mendon Public Library to research the possibility of a private capital campaign. We met in the library and at first I told him, “No way.” But I’ve come to believe that building a library in Mendon is absolutely the right thing to do.

Q: Why do you think building a new library in Mendon is the right thing to do?

The library is an asset to our community. It serves people from all walks of life–children, seniors, adults, job seekers, people who need a window to the Internet, owners of small businesses, people in wheelchairs, and parents, just to name a few. Our current library can’t fully meet the needs of all residents. The need for building a new library that can meet residents’ needs now and well into the future  is clear.

Q: What is the goal of the capital campaign?

The seed funding for the capital campaign has come from a private organization, The Friends of the Mendon Public Library. The vision I have for the capital campaign is to give other private champions of the library an opportunity to support the project. By making private gifts, these champions can minimize the tax burden on Mendon residents related to the library.

Our ultimate fund-raising goal is $1.6 million, which will support the completion of both phase 1–the approximately 8,000-square-foot building now under construction–and phase 2, the renovation of the existing library and building a connection from the renovated building to the new building. Our short term goal is to raise enough money to ensure the town doesn’t need to make payments on the $660,000 bond it put in place to allow the project to go out to bid and to keep a $.5 million new library construction grant from the state of New York.

Q: What experience do you have  with fund-raising and capital campaigns?

I helped to raise the funds for the addition of a community room, nursery, library, classrooms and offices to my church. A distinguished Eagle Scout (of which there are only 3,000 in the country), I also volunteer my time to fund-raising for the Boy Scouts of America, which has successfully applied the Benevon model to its efforts. I’m also a trustee of the University of Rochester and an active fund-raiser for Thompson Health in Canandaigua.

Q: What is your background?

I live in Mendon and grew up in Lockport, N.Y. I graduated from the University of Rochester where I met my wife, Judy. While a lieutenant in the Navy, I completed my MBA in Rhode Island. Leaving the Navy, I worked for Xerox for 30 years, including traveling to Japan to learn about Deming’s quality method; then for The Sutherland Group; and most recently for Harris Interactive.

Q: What has been the most gratifying part of the capital campaign work so far?

I have really enjoyed communicating the value of the current Mendon Public Library and why having an up-to-date, adequately sized library is the right thing for Mendon. We are perfectly poised to undertake this project. We have public support in the form of the $1.35 million bond that Mendon taxpayers approved 3-1 in 2008. We are building a library that is on the mark in terms of its size compared the number of residents in our town. We are looking at raising matching funds so we will qualify for New York state library renovation grants to help fund phase 2. And, we have an amazing team of volunteers, town and library staff, and elected officials working together to make this vision reality.

Why Does Mendon Need a New Library?

Perhaps the biggest reason is that the bathrooms are in the basement. And that means that key people in our community–including those that use wheel chairs, seniors and parents with strollers–cannot fully access it.

View the movie at this link to gain one family’s perspective on the problem.