Summary:
Gwen Lennox was interviewed by Barbara Baratta on August 4, 2009. Gwen remembered being a voracious reader while she was growing up in Selma, a small farming community in the central valley. Her parents had been active in their community, and when Gwen moved to Lafayette in 1993 she soon became an early and active participant in the project to replace the old library with a larger new one. Many of the skills she had developed in her two-decade business career proved to be very valuable as the project moved visioning to planning to fundraising, and Gwen eventually took over responsibility for the fundraising campaign. In this interview, she discusses the members of the remarkable team whose work resulted in the development of the new Lafayette Library and Learning Center.
Oral History:
Barbara Barata: Okay now we’re going to try this one more time with Gwen Lennox.
Gwen Lennox: And this is Gwen and we’re hoping the tape recorder is working…now we know what’s going on.
BB: Okay. This is Barbara Barata and I am interviewing Gwen Lennox on August 4th for the oral history um interview. So okay um what are your first and best childhood memories of libraries?
GL: Well um I grew up in Selma, California and um we had uh which is a small agrarian town of 7,000 people and so we had a downtown library and I just have very fond memories of spending lots of time there and one of the things I remember it was very cool because where we live is very hot in the summer time..over 100 degrees and we’d go into the library. It would just be like this wonderful quite, um kind of dark and cool feeling of going in there and I loved going into the stacks and exploring all the different types of books and um had the um distinction of reading I think all the fairy book tales uh books that they had on the shelf and that was kind of one of my goals and that I’d move on to some other genre and so it was a lot of fun growing up and spending time in the library.
BB: Okay and how important was reading to you growing up and what are some of your uh favorite childhood books?
GL: Reading. I was a voracious reader. I wish I could still say I was now because of time but I read constantly and had an active imagination and in terms of um and then our school rewarded kids for the amount of books that they read and so um that I think that was also a big incentive to me and um childhood books I think one that comes to mind that I can recall um is a Wrinkle in Time um which was one of my favorites um growing up.
BB: Okay so what awareness of community did you have while growing up?
GL: My parents were very involved in the community. My dad was on the school board um the whole time that we were in school and so and mom was involved in the hospital guild and downtown politics and community awareness and so we were very involved in our town and um enjoyed enjoyed that whole activity level in our lives. I’m trying to think if there’s anything else that you want more than that…
BB: No just anything about what you were aware with it a diverse community.
GL: It was a very it was diverse um in that it’s um there was a large percent of Hispanic. I think over 50 percent were Hispanic because of the migrant workers um for the farming and then we had very dear friends um that were uh Japanese farmers, Nisei farmers and um and then Armenians, our neighbors across the street so that we were very involved in the Armenian community and then um um I’m just trying to think very few… we had one African-American family in town um that had six kids and one of the girls was my best friend and and so yes I mean we we had a very diverse um exposure to ethnicity where we grew up and my parents were very embracive of that um element.
BB: Okay
GL: Yeah
BB: You want to talk a little about your educational background education.
GL: I went to Junior College um at Reedley which is a neighboring community um college and then I transferred as a Junior to UC Davis and graduated there in civil engineering.
BB: Okay and what attracted oh okay what about your work experience?
GL: Work experience.
BB: A little bit about that.
GL: Um, yes buried and assorted. I had the fun job of working through high school and having lots of different things from packing fruit to raising hogs to being in Future Farmers of America and then working for the Bureau of Reclamation building weirs for waterways going through college and then for a geotechnical soils firm again in college while I was going through college and then when I graduated um I were I interviewed and chose to choose a non traditional career path with PG&E which was more mechanical engineering. It was during the Oil Embargo in 1980 and they were hiring a large quantity of engineers to go out and promote energy efficiency and so I signed on with PG&E and i worked there for 17 years and had 20 different jobs in the 17 years that ranged from energy efficiency and going up the supervision ranks to personnel, human resources, governmental relations and during that time they were looking to promote women into executive management so I was put on a training program to facilitate that and so it was a lot of fun because I got to do a wide range of activities and project management where I could use my technical background not so much my classic, not classic civil engineering but a lot of analytical problem solving and and then the thing that I found that I enjoyed the most was working with people and so my my career gravitated more in that direction and I was loaned probably the one of the highlights is I was towards the end of my time with PG&E. I was loaned out for two years to the City and County of San Francisco as there’s a group that’s called the Mayor’s Fiscal Advisory Committee and they’re a pro bono consulting group of executives from companies in San Francisco that do consulting for all the different department heads in the City and County to help them you know with whatever issue that they’re facing so they rotate from one corporation to the other who is the chair and who provides the staff person to facilitate that so I was able to be the Executive Director of that organization for two years which was so amazing to work with all these CEOs and their their talent pools to problem solve for the City and County of San Francisco so it’s a very nice collaboration and I loved that kind of work.
BB: Well, how did you get to Lafayette?
GL: We um I was working in San Francisco and I was promoted to be the District Manager out in Vacaville for um Solano County and so my husband and I were just recently married and we decided that for me to commute from San Francisco to Vacaville every day and back was a little too much so my former boss who I’d come to know, Jack Jenkins-Stark who’s on the Board for the Library Foundation told me about checking out Lafayette which is where he was and where he was raising his kids and so John and I looked and we knew that we didn’t want to go out to the Concord Walnut Creek area because my husband’s more of an urban guy and and so we landed in Lafayette and found a house and settled here and he was commuting to Oakland and I was commuting to Vacaville and we were just kind of seeing each other at the night and then during corporate reorganization with PG&E I just I um actually I got pregnant with Ian and worked there in a part-time position through that and then they were downsizing and so I was offered the opportunity to work full-time or to take a severance so I decided to take the severance and then go into consulting and then lo and behold I found out I was pregnant with Brooke so John and I decided that I would stop the job search for a while and I was a full-time mom for about five years, four years and then as the kids got a little older and I got out of the house a little bit more, my neighbor down the street Sharon Shiragi who’s the daughter of Bill Eames of um uh Bill’s Drugs which was a big chain of pharmacies here in town…she recruited me to join her on the Board for Friends of the Lafayette Library so I um joined the Board and then I was elected into the President’s job and used a lot of my facilitating skills and planning skills to help lead a Strategic Planning Session for the Friends that resulted in a lot of the outgrowth of where we are today…their decision to continue supporting the Library in their traditional way rather than taking on the heavy-duty fundraising burden of um what would be needed to build a new library and then in the course of of doing this facility, Anne Grodin and Lois Laine and I and a handful of other people that she that pulled in, got together and started um meeting on a regular basis to figure out……
BB: Ann Appert was part of that too
GL: Part of it too, pardon, and I brought in Ann Appert
BB: Yes Yes
GL: She’s wonderful. She’s in my book club.
BB: Yes Yes
GL: So so I knew Ann from the Newcomers and so um and she I can’t remember if she was on the School Board then or not when we brought her in. I think she was and I thought it was important and so um talked to her and she said great and so she came on and then Teresa Gerringer came on but that was probably a little bit later. I think Ann came on before Teresa and um so we evolved and I was a committee a volunteer committee member and then it evolved to the point where the consultant that we were working with had done a Need’s Assessment to determine was the community ready for the kind of large gift fundraising that we would need to do and the answer came back was not yet and so we did some internal soul searching and reorganized ourself and I was asked if I would be kind of a Facilitator/Project Manager and be a staff person because our funds were non-existent at that point.
BB: Yeah Ann said, and I remember, remember you had to find a product to sell.
GL: Right! Exactly!
BB: Go out ….
GL: And what drove that, what drove that was the State Grant. We knew that to go in for the State Bond Grant we had to really have something unique and you’ve probably heard the story about how Roger Falcone came up with the idea of Gee….well you know all Lawrence hall’s materials are in the basement when they’re not up on display. Wouldn’t it be great to utilize them here?
BB: We’ll probably get to some of that okay.
GL: Oh sorry oh that’s okay. I. don’t mind. I’m used to it.
BB: Okay.
GL: And okay. So oh how long have I lived here oh that’s right we’ve been here since…..we got married in ’92 got we moved here in ’93.
BB: Right and if we define the goals of community as a place of mutual support, shared values and acceptance of differences, how do you see Lafayette’s meaning of goal?
GL: You know that’s been… I think the most fun of of what i’ve been doing is is experiencing the support and values sharing that that people have when they’ve come together around this project so um you’re talking to somebody that really feels strongly that that’s what Lafayette’s about. I think we have some other challenges that we can tackle in terms of reaching out to some of our communities…our dual income, our lower income families that live in town and and engage them a little bit more and then our seniors and I know that there’s a big effort underway right now looking about to see what senior services are desired.
BB: What are your earliest memories of the Lafayette Library?
GL: My earliest memories…. we spent a lot of time there with the kids. Probably L got to know the Library through the Friends would be my guess because I went on my own with my babies but through the Friends of the Lafayette Library having our Board Meetings there and getting to know the Staff and the organization and the needs of the County and then the branch itself.
BB: How often do you personally use the Library and for what particular reason?
GL: We use it on many different levels. I go there with the kids for homework assignments.
BB: How old is Brooke’s sister?
GL: Brooke has a brother. She has an older brother that’s going to be an eighth grader.
BB: Okay
GL: And then Brooke’s going to be a sixth grader so we’ve yeah yeah so we’ve done a lot of um searching there for different books and projects and things and then I um when i had a little bit more time would go and check out books for my own reading. I primarily use the Library now for my Book Club books and use them for holding unless I’m like 15th on the list for the book and it’s our book next month.
BB: Right. Right.
GL: Yeah!
BB: And how do you feel the Library serves the community?
GL: Oh in so many ways. The other thing I was thinking to think about is I used the library a lot when I was commuting and I used the books on tape because of my drive and I enjoyed that but Lafayette at the time… I don’t know if it still has that the distinction… had a very large Books on Tape Collection and again the Friends were the reason why because they supplemented that in that resource. How does the library serve a community…and so many facets. I mean it’s it has something for everyone. It’s a sanctuary. It’s a safe place. It’s a place of knowledge. It’s a place for for people coming together. It’s a place for kids to go after school which serves parents you know that are working and want to know um where their children are. And it’s a place to discover all the joys that are inside the covers of the book.
BB: Okay. Have you been involved in the Library over the years and if so in what way and tell me about some of your experiences.
GL: When I lived in the City….I was there for 13 years. I was more of a user of the Library there so I think my my key Library involvement really started in the late 90s here in Lafayette.
BB: Mm-hmm
GL: Through the Friends and built up from there.
BB: Okay can you say anything about your experience of it or what?
GL: It.. it was a pleasure because I love reading and I love you know what’s contained within the walls of a library and the diversity of what’s there um so um it’s always been a joy to be involved with anything library-related.
BB: Whatever community events, projects, organizations have you been involved with and if you can tell me about some of your experiences.
GL: It varied. Before before family I was involved at the state level for an organization called Leadership California. It’s a professional women’s organization of of women executives from the public and and non-profit public and private sectors and it’s a program that has a curriculum where you go through four different two-day-long sessions and you learn about different elements of California in the full spectrum of government policy, the private sector, the non-profit sector and it was rotated, the sessions are rotated throughout the state and then I was the President of that organization um and before that I was involved with another organization called Association Professional Energy Managers which again, during the oil embargo was a semi-technical group that came together, um a national organization um to promote energy conservation and the development of that as an industry. L was involved in Leadership San Francisco, again kind of a more localized version of Leadership California but um for men and women and then um um came when I came to Lafayette we chose a Co-op Nursery School for our kids and so um that was a wonderful way of getting to know the community and meeting people and and you know doing the work that needs to be done to run a co-op and then I was involved in of course in PTA and um volunteered for and then’ve been in a leadership position um for creating a um uh children’s program called Logos. It’s an inter denomination at our church (Lafayette-Orinda Presbyterian Church, LOPC ,which involved developing a community of people from all ages to um put together an after school kind of midweek camp, if you will, for kids that culminated in an interdenominational, intergenerational meal where the same grandparent age people would come and have a meal with kids from kindergarten through fifth grade and so that was a great experience and again meeting people from all different walks of life and and engaging their strengths. We had crafts people that wanted to do crafts, and music people that wanted to teach kids music and so it was just, it was a another really great experience.
BB: Sounds like a lot of satisfaction.
GL: Very much very much!
BB: Okay. So maybe we’ll go over to the library okay and who are the people and you’ve answered a little bit. Let’s put it here who are the people involved in the 1996 study and what were the results of this study and what did the respondents want? Do you remember that?
GL: Yeah I do. Is that the vision 2000?
BB: Who was on the vision task force right division involvement? I don’t remember the composition of all of that and I can dig it up but….
GL: I do know that the outcome of that was what delineated the impetus for us to move forward with a new library. I mean and it was the needs assessment that then clearly showed that there was a groundswell of support.
BB: Okay.
GL: Yeah.
BB: Yeah. So why is this library so important to you?
GL: Oh Boy! Well um selfishly I enjoyed a wonderful experience growing up and having access to a community library. I think our library for the community that we have here is small and very worn and very inadequate to meet the needs of of our community and so I’m excited to be a part of having a resource for our children to experience and then for my husband and I to look forward to using as we age in place and enjoy Lafayette and then the other thing that I’m very excited about is the regional, the regional draw that hope we can achieve one of the elements I think that’s very important to me with this model of a library and learning center is that it be replicable, and that we um hold true to our desire of creating this as a model that others can put in place and employ in communities throughout the United States. Every every suburban community has resources around them in some form or fashion and it’s not I think impossible to develop the kind of relationships and the connections where you can create a learning opportunity in the diversity that that we’ve been able to do with the partners that we’ve attracted and brought in place.
BB: Okay…why did you want to participate in this development.
GL: I think of course my connection to libraries I’ve talked about enough but the other element was exciting to me it was the caliber of the people that were involved in the formation and and their pure um desire separate of their own egos um that and and the altruistic um desire to create something um with with into the box. I mean that was I think the most fun for me was to work with um professionals that were open-minded and willing to try something different.
BB: And how did you first get involved and what role or roles have you played in this?
GL: I got involved through my connection with Friends and then meeting the the contiguous meeting of people through that process and um roles again. I started out and as a volunteer on a committee and then worked into, found myself taking the notes and kind of putting the agendas together for future meetings and and keeping us on a track where we could continue to move forward and not revisit…..
BB: And your background you were made for this and so you said you were just so late….
GL: Well it’s just interesting because it just kind of fell into place. It wasn’t through any deliberate planning or thought on my own so it’s it’s kind of kind of ironic the way that this has evolved for me um so it it has and then um the other thing is is that we had the benefit early on of working with Bob Fisher who we retained um and he um has vast experiences in a profession and is a professional fund fundraiser and I had about I have a background in marketing and sales from when I was at PG&E and had a lot of outside of corporate training that in retrospect. I look at those skill sets and all of those carry over into anything that you do as long as you have commitment and passion for what you’re talking about and that’s, that’s fundraising and I won’t want to. I’ll wait because I have a philosophy on why we’ve been so successful.
BB: What have you enjoyed most throughout your participation?
GL: I think the people that I’ve worked with and the diversity of backgrounds that they’ve come from and the ability to harness all the different talent pools and the viewpoints that make up our community. I think that’s been the most fun for me.
BB: Okay
GL: Yeah
BB: What are some of the obstacles you encountered which think that will probably be a lot of people and how did you overcome them?
GL: Oh boy! Well we were pretty optimistic, right, well you know we were a pretty optimistic group and so we’re fortunate to live in an affluent community where people are willing to support education. I think our obstacle when when 9/11 happened, that was a big impact to our campaign, the current recession or whatever it is that we’re in right now. Depression? How would have has been a big challenge to figure out how to appropriately continue our cause and be sensitive to what’s happening in the world and to people around us. That’s important yeah. The other thing that’s been a challenge is managing volunteer fatigue because we live in a community where volunteerism is so high and it always seems to be the same group of people in a lot of senses that do the a lot of the work and so acknowledging that and reaching out, i think that’s been a challenge that we keep tasking ourselves with is to bring in new people and and to keep involving new individuals to keep fresh ideas coming and and keep it vibrant so it doesn’t become an insular process yeah.
BB: Okay so what are your oh no sorry… who have you observed making a real impact on the library… that is are there any particular personalities?
GL: Steve Falk is one of my heroes as a City Manager and I’ve worked with other city managers in the past um in my PG&E career. I’ve been so impressed with how broad-minded and visionary he is in his thinking and his willingness to be non-traditional in the leadership he provides and and facilitates. Anne Grodin is another wonderful personality that has had the stick-to-it-edness. Yes that has been the glue and been positive and well connected and and experienced because of her background in being on different non-profit boards. Don Tatzin our our city councilman for so many years and his dedication to that job and his willingness and his quiet way and his brilliance in creating this um fiscal model that we’ve been able to use harnessing the RDA redevelopment money. Roger Falcone um getting to know him and um he was a former school board member and Cal physics professor and leader there um you know. Just the host of dedicated stellar but those probably rise to the top for me and um and I’ve had so much fun meeting people like Marechal Duncan and John Otto and a host of other people of all generations and ages and then Lois Laine is another wonderful woman that’s become a close friend that I have come to know and admire and and enjoy so it’s you know it’s hard to narrow it down.
BB: Okay so this is I think we’ve covered this a little bit but what are your best memories of your involvement with the new library? Can you elaborate what was the most fun and the most rewarding?
GL: Well working with the people but i’m just thinking of events that we’ve had. I think the kickoff celebration that we had where we had two to three thousand people come and I don’t know how many hundreds of volunteers we had staffing that, where we showcased our consortium partners for the first time. That to me was a real turning stone or milestone for Lafayette and turning a corner because unlike the art and wine festival, which draws you know a certain type of crowd, this drew people of all ages and all segments of our community and it was great to see them in that setting experiencing what was to come. It was a street festival. We had it in the old Veterans Memorial Building before it was torn down, and we had it in a town plaza that had just been built. We had sword fighting there with Cal Shakes. We had First Street and Golden Gate Way closed off and we had tents set up where authors were talking and then LASF had a booth. In fact Brooke was talking about how she remembers at one of the the booths someone was taking apart a computer and the kids were actually able to get their hands on and feel and see the insides of a computer and then we had rotating shows in the Veterans Building between our consortium partners with live birds flying around and you know political dissertations and debates going on upstairs and then Gold Coast Chamber Players playing in one of the rooms and so it was just the true diversity of of what we’re going to have soon in our in our community.
BB: Yeah and so what values did this contribution touch that you hold dear? What are the values that this life this whole project represents for you?
GL: That every individual can make a difference because everyone that has gotten involved in my way of thinking has had a significant contribution in directing the outcome of what we’ve what we’re going to have and that continues forward. I mean it’s something that’s dynamic and um I think it’s going to be really important that we continue to embrace to keep reinventing ourselves and to keep ourselves fresh and vibrant and current so I think that experience in working on this project is something that was that you know has been an important element to me is that openness to to ideas and to and to people and to personalities uh that come with it.
BB: Kind of nourishing because you see that the positive part about the human spirit.
GL: Yes
BB: And that’s why people are really willing because we read and see so much about the other side… isn’t that the truth?
GL: So this is sort of I don’t know greed but there’s a word….
BB: Validating
GL: Yeah! That! Validating or rekindling.
BB: Right.
GL: Belief in people.
BB: Right.
GL: John Gardner and I’m trying to remember the little booklet that he wrote about building community or a sense of community and I had the privilege of meeting him when I was working as a loan executive for the City and County of San Francisco and his his speech and in that book…. I think it is what we’re all about… it’s building that sense of community and starting in your own neighborhood… you know the pebbles in the pond and how that…
BB: They’re bringing the neighborhood together! Exactly!
GL: Yeah
BB: What transformations have you seen in Lafayette residing in the new library? I mean it’s nothing like it was in 1993 visually and with all the development downtown for community. Just the gentrification but um um increasing community involvement… that’s the question. Transformation in Lafayette. Oh I think yes. I think there’s much more of a sense of civic pride and excitement and a sense of “we’ve got something right, right?” and this is something for everyone and the thing that I recall in the needs assessment that came out loud and clear was let’s make sure that what we build is not just for families and young kids that it’s for adults you know through the whole spectrum and that was that was a good reality check to make sure that we didn’t get too focused in one demographic.
BB: Have you seen an increase in community involvement as it progressed?
GL: I have in my world of library related activities and fundraising and community outreach and awareness building you know, just by the nature of…
BB: Seeing the physical building.
GL: Seeing the building and seeing people say I want to get involved and we’re getting emails from people with their resumes attached saying I’d like to volunteer. How can I help so it’s, it’s just…..
BB: A snowball that’s just starting to to build yeah and I think there’s a peer thing people hear about… yes well you’re doing this and I want to do right and there’s
GL: Right
BB: Then the bigger and the greater it comes across and the more concrete I think
GL: Yeah
BB: Many people see something
GL: Right
BB: Isn’t that abstract exactly, exactly… hey this is really, it’s it’s happening. It’s not just, it’s not an idea any longer.
GL: Yeah!
BB: Yeah… so what’s most exciting to you about the new library? It says please elaborate.. did any ideas, words, activities particularly draw your attention?
GL: Oh you know it the fact that we have captured, you know, that all that a library holds is a given but it I think built upon that to the the learning consortium you know and the, the learning center aspect and just the word learning center. I think it can fall kind of flat until you understand what’s behind that um and so the the Glenn Seaborg Learning Consortium itself, the programmatic aspect um to me is the frosting on the cake um and the depth and the potential of what that is um is exciting to to think about and the fact that we have other organizations knocking on our door saying can we come and play in your sandbox… it’s great!
BB: Yeah yeah! Then you know you’ve arrived.
GL: Yes!
BB: You do… yes! People are starting to ask you.
GL: Yes
BB: Yes! Right! Okay! Why do you think that the citizens of Lafayette have responded so enthusiastically to your project?
GL: Well, our community in my view you know values education and it values um lifelong learning and understands that you know there’s financial benefits to that too. I mean our property tax, our real real estate value is high because of the the quality of the schools and then just the physical beauty of what we had is certainly is another feature of that but I think people have responded because they understand that besides the educational aspect that what we’re doing is something different and they’re excited about it and I’d like to think they feel like they’ve been listened to because the design of this whole campaign and the whole building has been very inclusive of community input. There have been I think on the city’s behalf, many opportunities for our citizens to come forward and express their opinions and their desires and their dislikes and so it’s been an active debate to get us to the point where we are so I think that openness and esprit de corps that has been maintained around this project um has built that sense of “this is going to be a good thing for all of us”.
BB: Okay okay. What outcomes do you hope for most with the new Lafayette Library and what do you look forward to using doing and enjoying?
GL: It’s hard to pin down outcome I hope for our communityI i hope they’ll come and feel that this is the third place…. you know which is a well used expression. You have home and you have work and then you have that other place that you like to go to and I’m hoping that the community will come together and see the library and learning center as that third place, as that asset in our community that provides riches for everyone in the full sense of the academic, the arts you know, and science…. all the elements that we’re pulling together and I hope people look at that location and that in that or the building as a place that we’re thinking deciding things happen and you know and for me using doing and enjoying the most um oh boy um I’m looking forward to having a cup of coffee and going into the library and sitting down in a comfortable place um that’s quiet if I want quiet um and having um the opportunity to just you know um have have the leisure of of enjoying the beauty of what the building contains because I’ve had the benefit of seeing the inside and it’s I think it’s architecturally spectacular and the other thing I’m looking forward to is is the upgrade of the collection um which has been planned for um to have new um books and new um items on the shelves to to discover will be a fun.
BB: Happy young with books.
GL: Yes… there you go.
BB: Some people predicted the internet would kill the printed word and libraries would become obsolete.
GL: Oh yes.
BB: How will our new library avoid such a fate?
GL: I think that’s already been proven false um because libraries embrace technology and embrace the database potential um and they are the database um for unlimited resources that can be harnessed um for free which to me is miraculous that we can have access to the riches um online that you can get through the library and the neat thing about that is your library card allows you to do that from your own office at home or your own computer at home versus having to go into the actual facility so I think just technology itself and how the library is poised and, and has taken that role of being that database… the repository will keep it vibrant, yeah.
BB: And how do you think the library will affect or better serve or enhance our community?
GL: Well…
BB: How is it going to make this place better?
GL: Right now it going to make Lafayette better.
BB: I think part of what you just said
GL: Yeah
BB: Things having things that are free right for classes….
GL: Right. Having them so much more accessible right right? That’s it because um you know when the kids were younger I took the kids all the way over Lawrence Hall of Science and did the drive on a regular basis and what a pleasure to think that those kind of classes will be accessible here.
BB: Uh-huh and I think it’ll widen the opportunity for families that couldn’t afford the time or have the ability to take their kids to experience those kind of classes. The kids can walk after school they can so from that standpoint I think access is going to be wonderful too. Space, right?
GL: Oh right so just having that space.
BB: Right.
GL: And when you walk in the new library it’s just like oh it’s going to be heaven you know. It’s going to be filled, once it’s filled, with the stacks and everything, you won’t have this big sense of space like you do now but it’s going to be so wonderful to have the size library that our community deserves and needs so yes… and then the Community Hal I think is going to be just a pearl… um the the beautiful piano um where we our kids take piano lessons and jazz lessons and that have a second instrument and so in the course of our experience finding recital locations um that are close and that have a quality piano that’s going to be a lovely access point that we haven’t had in our community um and then the Plaza and being able to do things outside and enjoy the indoor/outdoor aspect of what our weather provides us with how the building was designed you know. I just think it’s, it’s a great, it’s a great well thought out uh facility.
BB: And now let’s see is there anyone else you think we should um contact?
GL: I think you probably have more than enough, yeah.
BB: I don’t mean… you think I’ve left anything out and do you have any final thoughts?
GL: I think um what’s exciting is the fact that we’ve got almost 25% of our community that are donors. To me which is unheard of in the in the fundraising world and in the non-profit world is not just due to the demographics of Lafayette. I think it’s because of this willingness to embrace the diversity of ideas and people and styles um to get involved with with as much time as they can um give and and inviting volunteers to extend out to others um you know the pebble and the pool effect. I think has been miraculous and been a big huge element of why we’ve gotten to where we’ve gotten and the thing that I’m excited about now that we haven’t had a chance to talk about is building philanthropy among our children. I had the benefit of seeing the importance of philanthropy when I was a child through my parents volunteer activities um and I’m hoping that the new generation of children will also have that sense of satisfaction and making a difference through their involvement with the library and learning center and we have a kids campaign, a power of youth campaign going on right now and I’m going to a meeting tonight with some moms and a young man that is going to use his Eagle Project as the he’ll be the leader for getting teens together to do this book sale at the Art and Wine and so it’s for me it’s it’s so rewarding and so exciting to see the potential that you can harness when you tap the different segments of our community and bring them together under a shared vision and and and and say what do you think, what what do you want to do… so I guess you know my parting thought on that is I think that is going to help us continue to be successful and um embrace all the wonderful potential that we have in front of us you know in our…..
BB: It gives us a place to allow that to come forth and….
GL: Some base rock structure yeah you know… to to facilitate that and to nurture that so so stay tuned… it’s going to be fun to watch and be a part of!
BB: Okay
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