Our hard work is being recognized nationally...We have received a Baker & Taylor Award from the Friends of the Library USA! Thanks to everyone involved in pulling this together!
Project Overview
The good people of Westhampton have secured a grant of over $1.1 million from the State to use to:
- Purchase the Parsonage (an historic building in the center of town) and convert it into a library that is accessible to everyone in town
- Preserve the acres of open space behind the Parsonage for public use; and,
- Convert the current library into much needed town office space.
But we won't get the grant unless we come up with our share of the funds: around $700,000. The Friends are working against the clock to raise all the funds needed before the grant's clock expires!
Funds Raised as of 09/2009: over $650,000!!!
A group of committed town residents is continuing their awareness and fundraising campaign to help make the Town Center Library Project a reality. The library grant of nearly 1.2 million dollars is still available to Westhampton (timing depends on the Massachusetts Legislature) as long as we come up with our share. If you would like to continue the conversation about this, please contact Tarin Weiss.
The state grant does not require that the entire project be funded by the Town. It can be a partnership of private and public funds. It is required, however, that the Town meet minimum funding requirements for the library (present and future). If it does not, we will lose our library certification which means no Town resident would be allowed to hold a library card/borrow books from any public library in Massachusetts. (This is currently the situation in Hampden; because they stopped funding and closed their library, all of the town residents lost their borrowing privileges from every other public library in the state. Hampden residents can not get a library card anywhere in Massachusetts.) Westhampton currently meets the minimum funding requirements for library certification.
For more information on the project, click on any of the links below:
Financial Info
Town Hall Squish
History of the New/Old Building
