Stuff's Happening...

Well, the library is coming along right on schedule. We were a bit worried the first week of construction when a dump truck full of fill dirt fell into a septic tank on the property! Yup. I have no idea why we didn't know it was there, but it was. No one was hurt. Except our bank account. We sustained a $16,334 increase on the project cost, as the septic tank drain lines ran right under our building. So they had to be removed and replaced with good material to build on top.

As you drive by the site you can see activity there just about every day. But we have also been doing a little work behind the scenes:

On January 16 fellow Indian Land resident Trish Douglas accompanied me to a meeting with the architect's staff about carpet and other flooring, countertops, doors, bathrooms, etc. We had a marathon day of choosing color schemes and all that. One item that had already been predetermined was the cork flooring we will have inside the main entrance to the library. It will be a fairly good sized area. Cork is a beautiful, natural product with an organic feel, so we jumped off of that with our carpet and other choices. We incorporated colors that would be reminiscent of the Catawbas and lends a feel of back-to-nature. Our next outing will be to go choose furniture.

We have also been doing some fairly significant fund raising. Not the door-to-door kind, but we have been working on sources of funds to help close the gap, which currently stands at $400,000. Here are a couple things that have happened:

• We received $20,000 from the Lancaster County Partners for Youth. This will fund both study rooms! YAY!
  
• We are in the process of re-applying to the Springs Close Foundation for a grant. We applied two years ago and they denied our application, saying they would consider it again when the library was open. However, we need the funds in order to open the library, so we are trying again. We are asking for $75,000.
• We are also requesting $200,000 from the state of South Carolina under their SC Competitive Grants Program. I wish I could tell you more about what this is, but I've somehow lost track of the email. I'll get the information and post it here. But essentially I think it's a program to help communities with projects like this. We have to have a legislator sponsor us, so Mick Mulvaney wrote us a letter of support, and we have the support of Representative Joseph Neal, who is on the Ways and Means Committee.

So there you have it! Stuff is happening!

We are also getting questions weekly about the next festival, which is scheduled for Saturday, September 27.

We Did It!

IL Library Groundbreaking Mosaic
Originally uploaded by Food Fanatic

We broke ground for the new Del Webb Library at Indian Land yesterday, Dec. 2, 2007. Expected completion date: November, 2008.

Click on the photo to see it larger and to view individual photos on flickr.

Photos of the Festivities

Thanks to The Lancaster News and Carolina Gateway for these photos:

Yes folks, that is your state house representative, Mick Mulvaney.

This is a true friend of the library, runner Amy Parrott. She won $100 in the 5k and then donated it right back to the library. Thank you Amy!

Kayla Custer, 9, from Indian Land holding bunny rabbits during the festival.

Grace Jung, from Charlotte, throwing the ball at Mick Mulvaney in the dunking booth.

Colby Adams, from Lancaster, is taking care of his dad's, Greg Adams 2006 SSR Chevolet before the judging in the car show at the Sun City Fall festival.

Bike show winners

Tiffany Hensley playing in the Indian Land Band.

A matched set.

What a GREAT Day!

The 2nd annual Fall into Fun Festival was an unqualified success! We actually DOUBLED our income this year, netting more than $18,000! HOO! HOO!

The Festival sported several new attractions this year: Live entertainment, a car show was added to the bike show we had last year, and a 5k race.

The 5k was the event that probably surprised me the most. 54 runners young and old walked, ran and trotted, bringing in more than $1300 in entry fees. The top runners were given fresh, crisp $100 bills for prizes and winner Amy Parrott donated hers right back to the library! Amy! You go girl!

The bike/car show brought in more than $1400. Many thanks to David Freeman for donating trophies for the bikes, and Vintage Cars for donating part of the money for the car trophies.

Bo Beaumont and Daniel Kirkley provided us with excellent live entertainment, as well as Tyler Mitchell, a freshman at Indian Land High School. The ILHS marching band started our day by marching to the sales center from the club house and then playing the "Star Spangled Banner" at the flagpole after the JROTC presented the colors.

The silent auction was a big hit too. Only half a dozen items went unclaimed at the end of the day, and they had even been bid on. The winning bidders just weren't there to pick them up. Don Jenkins donated a 2003 Golf Club Car and it brought $2100. Total proceeds from the auction were over $5200.

Three things really struck me about the festival this year:

It was put on with very little money out of the library's pocket. Less than $2000 was spent. And most of that was for the performers hired by the library. Those were the same performers we offer to the children's programming at the main branch in Lancaster throughout the year. So really we can view that portion as being items from the regular Friends budget. This festival has a lot, makes a lot of money, and 95% of the profit goes straight to the library. We can be proud of the fact that we have the kind of support from our community that enables us to get a lot of things donated. Pulte Homes, the Carolina Gateway newspaper, and the Indian Land Rotary all donated seed money, flyers, signs, garbage pick-up, and porta-potties. Without that, our net would have been considerably smaller.

The second thing that struck me were the volunteers. I admit right here and now that I've been pretty grumpy about putting this shindig together. It is time-consuming, a big headache, lots of stress, hard to coordinate so many people. But Saturday, I was sitting on one of the stone ledges at the entrance to the festival, shoes off, trying to give my aching feet a rest, and I commented to my buddy, "All that complaining I did. I'm humbled by the fantastic attitudes and hard work of all these volunteers. They are all working hard to get a library built for Indian Land."

And the third thing: This isn't just some rinky-dink festival anymore. This is turning into a huge, regional event that draws vendors and visitors from all over the Charlotte area. We had vendors from 50-60 miles away. And they all want to come back.

So. Mark your calendars. Saturday, September 27, 2008. Be here in Indian Land. And by then our library will be just about open!

Here I am, pushing the button to dunk Dr. Adam Cooper, Southern States Chiropractic. He allowed himself to be dunked more than 250 times. Photo taken by Jenny Overman and shared courtesy The Fort Mill Times.

Festival Day Approaches

Here are some particulars about the 2nd annual Fall into Fun Festival on Saturday, September 29:

The rain date will be October 6. A notice will be posted here if the festival is postponed. Vendors will be notified via email or phone call. If a vendor is unable to participate at the new date, they can call the Lancaster County Library to receive a receipt for a tax-deductible donation to the library.

The festival is from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. There will be a 5k Run/Walk and Toddler Trot starting at 8:30 a.m. in front of the Sales Center. Click the "Running to Read" link to the right for a registration form, or just arrive 30 minutes early to register on site.

Here is a link to driving directions

So far there are about 140 business and artist booths registered for this event. That's just about twice as many as last year! These booths will be in front of the Lake House in the parking lots on either side.

The children's area will also be in a parking lot in front of the Lake House. It will be in the back half of the lot on the left side. Two venues with live entertainment will operate there. The library will have performers scheduled throughout the day. In between those performances, teachers from Indian Land Elementary and Middle School will offer storytelling, characters and crafts.

We also have a large petting zoo by Claude Ellis, the Van Wyck train, and 10 churches offering craft tables for children. Children can buy wristbands for $5 to enjoy these activities.

Festival t-shirts will be available for sale for $5 each. We have several generous t-shirt sponsors who made that happen. Shirts will be for sale at the wristband booths and the Indian Land Rotary table.

The teen area will have a dunking booth, a pitching timer, NASCAR show car, two U.S. Army Humvees, and a huge inflatable obstacle course. This is an inflatable that is designed for teens and adults. For an idea of what that looks like, see yesterday's blog entry for a link to a video on youtube.

Lunch food vendors are many and varied. There will also be breakfast items offered by The Cookhouse and Morris Haynes, coffee vendor for the Lake House.

The car and motorcycle show will be held at the golf club further down Del Webb Blvd. The parking lot at the club has been specifically designed so as to make it nearly impossible for parked cars to be hit by golf balls. There will also be a putting contest held there by the car show.

Bands and musical groups, as well as roving characters, will entertain the crowds throughout the day. For a schedule of music, check this blog later in the week.

We'll see you at the festival!

Mahogany Games - Adrenaline Rush Obstacle Course - Bolaji

This is the inflatable we'll have at the Fall into Fun Festival this year on September 29

$1.9 Million! $300,000 to GO!!

Friday we received a check for $25,000 from HSBC,
putting us at $1.9 million. This leaves us only about
$300,000 short, depending on the bids of course, and
about $100,000 of that can be scraped up from state
grants and lottery receipts. Since we have over a year
before the building is completed, we are in good
shape.

It's Official!

We are sending out bid notices tomorrow to the major news papers and construction trades. they will be published Sunday, Sept. 16. Bids will be due Oct. 17. The library board will meet that night or the next day to consider the bids.

We are a little nervous that bids will come in for more money than we have. But we have built a nice cushion in our money pot to accommodate a reasonable increase of construction costs over the plans from two years ago, so we are hoping for the best.

We are about $300,000 short of the $2.2M we have determined is needed for the project. That's $1.5M for the building and the rest for furnishings and books. This morning library director Richard Band spoke to the Indian Land Rotary about the project and fielded a few questions from members about naming opportunities.

We also have a Rotary member that is in construction and his company will be interested in offering a bid. They are located in Richburg, SC, but most of the workers are here in Indian Land.

Wouldn't it be cool if our library were built for Indian Land by Indian Land residents?