The Del Webb Library at Indian Land

2010-06-22T12:37:00.000-07:00

Author Kim Wright to visit Del Webb Library @ Indian Land tonight!

June 22, 7 p.m.

Please come. Even if you haven't read the book.

Here's a letter from Pickens County Library Director to her Rep

2010-06-11T08:22:00.001-07:00

Representative David R. Hiott

418B Blatt Building

Columbia, SC 29201

Dear Representative Hiott,

My name is Allison Anderson and I am the Director of the Pickens County Library System. PCLS provides library service to approximately 117,000 Pickens County residents who, in the current stressed economy, need our services more than ever. During the past year an average of 1,357 patrons visit our library system each day! These patrons rely on our ability to provide crucial educational and employment assistance.

In his June 9^th, 2010 budgetary letter to the SC House of Representatives, Governor Sanford vetoed Aid to Public Libraries (item #31) and Federal Stimulus Funds for Public Libraries (item # 92). If this 6.5 million dollars in funding disappears so does South Carolina’s public libraries’ ability to provide vital library service when it is needed most. In Pickens County, Aid to Public Libraries provides over half of our materials budget for the collection and for workforce training programs. The Federal Stimulus portion of the funding allows public libraries to bridge the gaps in technology, programs and services. In addition, without the funding Governor Sanford vetoed in items #31 and #92, South Carolina public libraries may lose an additional $2.7 million dollars in Federal LSTA funds.

I am appealing to you as a Representative for Pickens County to support public libraries and the residents of Pickens County by voting to override the Governor Sanford’s veto of items # 31 and #92 on Tuesday, June 15^th. Your support is needed and appreciated!

Sincerely,

Allison Anderson, Director

Pickens County Library System

Copy. Paste. Email.

2010-06-11T08:20:00.001-07:00

TO: Representative Deborah Long

FROM: You

DATE: June 11, 2010

Please give urgent consideration to overturning the governor’s vetoes that would severely curtail library services to the people of our state.

Veto #31 would mean the loss of $80,983 for books and children’s services in Lancaster County. We have already had our local funding reduced and this cut would deal a devastating blow.

Veto #92 is Federal Stimulus Funds also designated for books.

In order to shift funds from other areas to buy books, there will be impacts on staff, operating hours and computer maintenance.

We all have a stake in helping children maintain their reading skills throughout the year. I’m sure you have witnessed the large numbers our programs attract at the Del Webb library.

Assistance for out-of-work adults has become a huge priority for public libraries in this economy. They need libraries to continue their learning and look for jobs.

And yet our book and technology resources are about to be wiped out.

Thank you for the difficult job you do and thank you for any help you can give us.

deborahlong@schouse.org

jmn@schouse.org

mulvaneym@scstatehouse.net

IMMEDIATE ACTION REQUIRED

2010-06-11T08:07:00.001-07:00

The Governor's vetoes (Veto 31 and 92) will be considered by the House

on Tuesday, June 15. If the House does not override the vetoes then the

Senate will not even consider them. So, at this time, we must focus

exclusively on the House, and we must be relentless. If we do not "win"

on Tuesday then over $6.5 million in State funds (including stimulus) is

GONE, and we jeopardize losing $2.7 million in Federal LSTA funds.

Here are the details:

Veto # 31 on page 14 of the Governor's memo is Aid to Public Libraries -

$4,653,933

This will mean for us the loss of $80,983 designated mainly for books. State Aid has already been reduced from $138,000 in 2008 and we have been hanging in there. But this will be a killer.

Veto #92 on page 28 of the Governor's memo is Federal Stimulus Funds -

$1,172,758 (.29/capita)

This amount for us is $17,791, all for books.

Here is the Message:

Eliminating these funds to public libraries will be devastating to our users. How can we operate without books? Public libraries provide crucial educational and employment assistance and if this funding goes away so does our ability to educate and prepare

students and the unemployed for the workforce.

Here is the Contact Information:

HOUSE

Deborah A. Long [R]

Optometrist

Dist. No. 45 - Lancaster & York Cos.

(H)	1115 John Short Rd., Indian Land, 29707

	Bus.	(803) 547-5547	Home	(803) 547-5215
(C)	414A Blatt Bldg., Columbia, 29201

	Bus.	(803) 212-6874

  * James M. "Jimmy" Neal [D]

    Retired Principal

    Dist. No. 44 - Lancaster Co.

(H)	5148 Sandy Lane, Kershaw, 29067

	Bus.	(803) 475-3533	Home	(803) 475-2358
(C)	422C Blatt Bdlg., Columbia, 29201

	Bus.	(803) 734-2976

SENATE

** J. Michael "Mick" Mulvaney [R] (2008)

Businessman

Dist. No. 16 - Lancaster & York Cos.

(H)	550 Ralph Hood Rd., Indian Land, 29707

	Cell	(803) 246-1001
(C)	606 Gressette Bldg., Columbia, 29201

	Bus.	(803) 212-6024

If you would like to send them a fax, you may do so at the library. You may e-mail them to Richard Band and he will send them.

House Fax Number: 803-734-2925

Used Book Sale

2010-05-28T03:32:00.001-07:00

FRIENDS MEMBERS UPDATE: SAVE THE DATE! SATURDAY JUNE 5 USED BOOK SALE IN FRIEND'S ROOM- MEMBERS ONLY PRE-SALE FROM 9-9:30!!!!!!!!- BUY ONE GET ONE FREE (of equal or lesser value) General public hours 9:30-12:30. Friends memberships also available for purchase and donations welcome. Proceeds to benefit library special programs.

Semi-Annual Used Book Sale

2010-05-25T16:57:00.000-07:00

June 5, 9:30 to 12:30 in the Friends book shop. Come out with a fistful of quarters and leave with a bagful of books!

REMINDER:

2010-05-09T05:09:00.000-07:00

Annual Meeting this Tuesday, May 11 at 7:00 p.m. at the library. Please come! You can vote if your dues are up to date.

Annual Meeting Announcement

2010-05-01T16:13:00.001-07:00

Notice of Annual Meeting

May 11

The meeting room at the Del Webb Library at Indian Land

Time: 7:00pm

Guest Speaker: KIRK JOHNSTON,Superintendent of Andrew Jackson State Park

Election of Officers
Slate of Officers for the Executive Board 2010-2011:

President: Debbi Wallace
Vice-President: Marcie McCrehin
Secretary: Dolores Bottinelli
Treasurer: Susan McClure
Members-at-large: Jackie Garnatz, Mary Last & Mark Carlyle

Nominations from the floor will be accepted

Vote on bylaw amendments

ARTICLE III.

MEMBERSHIP

Section 1. Membership in this organization shall be open to all individuals and corporations in sympathy with its purposes, and to representatives of organizations and clubs when such representation is desired.

Section 2. Membership is active upon payment of current dues. Each membership, with the exception of limited memberships, shall be entitled to one vote.

ARTICLE VI.

EXECUTIVE BOARD

Section 1. The executive board shall consist of the officers of the organization, the chairmen of all standing committees, the library system director, a Lancaster County Library Board member and not less than one nor more than three at-large members. The branch manager shall serve as ex-officio member of the executive board.

Section 2. The executive board shall have the authority to appoint committees consistent with the purposes of this organization.

Section 3. A simple majority of the executive board shall constitute a quorum.

Section 4. Meetings of the board shall be held quarterly. Special meetings may be called by the president.

Delete library director and board member as officers. The State Library recommends against having trustees or library administrators serving on Friends boards due to the need to maintain a line of separation between library governance and volunteer supporters. The roles can bleed over and be perceived as a conflict of interest, especially where budget matters are concerned.

It is fine for a library staff member, such as the branch manager, to serve ex officio. This provides a liaison between the groups and is always recommended.

Friends Executive Board Minutes, March 9, 2010

2010-04-28T14:08:00.001-07:00

Friends of the Del Webb Library at Indian Land

Minutes of the Executive Board Meeting

Date: March 9, 2010 @ 6:30pm

Attendance: D. Wallace, J. Tenney, N. Berry, R. Band, B. Zagor, C. McConaughay, K. Paulson, A. Jamison, D. Bottinelli

1. The meeting was opened by the president, Debbie Wallace.

2. Roll Call was completed.

3. Secretary’s report: Following a change in the net proceeds from the used book sale, the minutes of the February 9, 2010 meeting were approved.

4. Treasurer’s report: For the period ending February 28, 2010, as follows:

Income: Friends Shop…$445.50

New Membership…$35.00 Renewal…$100.00

Check book balance: $4036.09

5. Public comment: There was no public comment.

6. Library Staff report: The attendance for preschool story time was 317, movie night was 67. With the fiscal year ending on June 30, the 2010-201 may be difficult for the library. There will be state and county budget cuts, along with talk of furlough. The library is lobbying for stimulus funds and lottery funds. Time will tell. Special thanks to the Friends for their help. Since July 2009, 154 books have been purchased with funds from the Friends shop. In one month, the Discovery passes have been checked out 25 times. The Friends will be listed as a sponsor on the flier for the Summer Reading program. The “Pocket Change” drive netted $265.00. To date, there are 25,000 books on the shelves, the library opened with 10,000, and there are 6656 patrons.

7. President’s report: The Discovery passes are released 3 at a time, with 2 on reserve. The reserve passes are available for Friends members. The library is being utilized by the community. Planning for the upcoming year will take place at the April meeting.

8. Standing Committees’ report:

a. Friends Shop: The chairperson was interviewed by the SCCL “Living Magazine” and will be featured. Additional copies will be available.

b. Membership: Membership cards are ready.

9. New Business:

a. The library has asked for support from the Friends in sponsoring the Rewards for adults and young adults participating in the Summer Reading Program. A motion was made, and seconded, to donate $400.00 for the rewards for adults and young adults participating in the summer reading program. The vote was unanimous.

b. Discussion on the Friends participation in the “Fashion event Charity Day” sponsored by Belks in May, resulted in unanimous approved to go forward. K. Paulson will coordinate.

c. April’s meeting will be a volunteer faire. Advertising will include a newspaper announcement, email, phone tree and a posting on the library web site. Committees will include: The Friends shop (C. McConaughay), Fall Festival (D. Wallace), Youth Group/Children’s activities, Book Club for adult and young adults, PR/Hospitality, Author Talk (D. Bottinelli), Development (A.Jamison), Membership (E. Kirby). Each committee will make a short presentation.

d. A nominating committees, as well a chair is needed. Open seats will be president, vice president, and treasurer. R. Band will chair the bylaws committee.

e. The May meeting will be the annual meeting.

10. Adjournment: A motion was made to adjourn the meeting and seconded.

Re-Launch of this Blog

2010-04-13T13:13:00.001-07:00

Hi everyone!

I'm re-launching this blog, but really only sort of. I've started a Facebook page called "Indian Land Friends of the Library" and I plan to put a feed on this site from there. That way, hopefully we'll get more updates more often. Invite your friends to become fans and then go out there and post stuff. Especially about what you are reading. Anything at all. Really. And if you are interested in becoming a page administrator, email me.

Today is April 11 and we will have a Volunteer Fair in the meeting room at the library starting at 7 p.m Grab a friend or 6 and stop by and see what you can do to help out at the library.

Friends Executive Board Minutes, Feb 9, 2010

2010-03-15T16:10:00.000-07:00

Friends of the Del Webb Library at Indian Land

Minutes of the Executive Board Meeting

Date: February 9, 2010 @ 6:30pm

Attendance: D. Wallace, J. Tenney, N. Berry, R. Band, E. Kirby, H. Rabic, B. Zagor, J, Garnatz, A. Jamison, C. McConaughay, K. Paulson, A McDonald, D. Bottinelli

1. The meeting was opened by the president, Debbie Wallace

2. Roll Call was completed.

3. Secretary’s report: The minutes of the January 12, 2010 meeting were presented. The minutes were approved following the addition of Marie McCrehin in attendance and under New business, bullet a, “in the amount of $1650.00”.

4. Treasurer’s report:

Income: Friends Shop…$310.00

Used Book Sale…$818.90

New Membership…$105.00 Renewal…$545.00

Check book balance: $4,317.64

5. Public comment: There was no public comment.

6. Library Staff report: The “Spare Change Campaign”, which will cover the cost of the adult summer event, has collected $87.00. Twenty [20] additional books have been purchased with funds from the Friend Shop. The library has started a Film Program. The first showing, “Cloudy with a chance of Meatballs”, had 70 in attendance. This will be a monthly event, held on the 1^st Tuesday. The next film will be “The Princess and the Frog”. The 4^th Tuesday is night time story time. The Discovery passes has been fully booked for 2 weekends.

Mr. Band reported that the library budget is in “free fall”. The Indian Land Library is on track with full funding for the summer reading program. There are plans for an expansion of the Indian Land Library with the construction of an additional meeting room.

7. President’s report: Special thanks to all participants in the January events, the Birthday Celebration, the Used Book Sales and the Author Talk. There remains $20.00 from a donation for the Birthday Bash; this will be applied to cover the expense of the clown for the event.

8. Standing Committees’ report:

a. Friends Shop: The Friends Shop will hold a yearly book sale. Over flow will be sold to an outside vendor. There is a shortage of children’s books and donations are needed. It was suggested that the high school sponsor a book drive during National Library week. This will be coordinated by the “Teen Library Advisory Board”. Pricing is needed for the purchase of additional shelves.

b. Membership: There were 7 new members in January, 4 at the Birthday Bash. Currently, there are 90 members.

9. Old Business: A discussion on how funds from special events resulted in a vote approving that all funds will be added to the Friends account with no designated purpose.

10. New Business:

a. Preliminary plans for the Full Membership Meeting in April were started. For the March meeting, chairpersons will report on the needs of their committee. Chairpersons are: C. McConaughay, Friends Shop/Book Sale; E. Kirby, Membership; A. Jamison and R. Band, development; H. Rabic and A. McDonald, Children’s activities/Youth Group; D. Bottinelli, Author Talk. Fund raising activities will include: the Fall Festival, Birthday Bash and special sales. A n updated membership list with emails and telephone numbers will be developed for the Annual Meeting in April. A wish list was developed for committees and events, included were One Book/One Community, Book Clubs for adults and younger adults, computer classes, PR committee and Hospitality committee.

b. A reading club was proposed and discussed and was tabled to a later date.

c. The annual meeting will be on the 2^nd Tuesday in May.

11. Adjournment: A motion was made to adjourn the meeting and seconded.

Friends Executive Board Minutes, Jan 12, 2010

2010-02-18T13:06:00.000-08:00

Friends of the Del Webb Library at Indian Land

Minutes of the Executive Board Meeting

Date: January 12, 2010 @ 6:30pm

Attendance: D. Wallace, J. Tenney, N. Berry, R. Band, E. Kirby, H. Rabic, B. Zagor, J, Garntz, A. Jamison, C. McConaughay, D. Bottinelli

1. The meeting was opened by the president, Debbie Wallace

2. Roll Call was completed.

3. Secretary’s report: The minutes of the December 8, 2009 were approved as presented.

4. Treasure’s report:

Income: Friends Shop…$296.55

New Membership…$60.00 Renewal…$525.00

Donations: $75.00

Friends shop book sale [12/12-12/14]: $300.00

The checking account has been change to an interest bearing account. This requires a minimum balance of $1000.00 to avoid monthly fees.

5. Public comment: There was no public comment.

6. The Library Staff report: In December, an additional 18 books were purchased with funds from the Friends Shop. As of January 12, the library has 6,320 patrons and a circulation of 93,207 books, etc. and 9,146 computers. Achieving a goal of a circulation of 100,000 in the first year of the library. R. Band presented the gift for participants of the summer reading program and asked for the Friends’ support. The cost would be $1642.00. Additionally, The Sun City Life Long Learning Club and the Rotary Club have donated $1000.00.

7. President’s report: D. Wallace asked that all committee reports are kept brief and concise to enable the board to direct their attention to the upcoming Birthday Bash.

8. Standing Committees’ report:

a. Friends Shop: The Friends Shop has logged 400 volunteer hours since April 2009. The December Book Sale was a huge success. There was a waiting line on arrival. Proceeds: $300.00.

b. Membership: New membership forms will be ready for the Birthday Bash. Membership forms will be included in the Sun City Welcome packets.

9. Special Committees’ report:

a. Used book Sale: Emails have been sent to ask for assistance for the Book Sale on January 16^th and additional help is needed. A contact has been secured for the purchase of all unsold books at the end of the sale.

10. Old Business:

a. The Discovery Place membership packet is ready to be presented to the Library. This will be completed at the Birthday Bash.

b. Details for the Birthday Bash were discussed and confirmed.

c. Author Talk: Harris Tweeter will donate refreshments. The Gateway was contacted to run details of the event and to provide coverage. Posters have been posted in the Library. Flyers have been emailed to all Friends.

11. New Business:

a. A motion to sponsor the gifts for the summer reading program was made and seconded.

b. A discussion regarding the distribution of the proceeds of the special Friends Shop sales was initiated and tabled for the next meeting.

12. Adjournment: A motion was made to adjourn the meeting and seconded.

Executive Board Meeting

2009-10-11T16:50:00.000-07:00

There will be a meeting of the Friends Executive Board on Tuesday, October 13 at 6:30 p.m. It will be held in a conference room at the library.

All Executive Board meetings are open to the public.

Minutes from June Executive Board Meeting

2009-09-27T12:02:00.000-07:00

Some of these things have happened already, but we are not planning to publish Executive Board Minutes before they are approved. Where possible, we will post newsworthy items from each meeting (such as concrete dates or announcements) as they occur.

Click to view Minutes (MSWord)
Minutes in PDF

Festival Moved Indoors

2009-09-26T06:22:00.000-07:00

It's misty this morning but that will not stop the festival from going forward. Come on over to the Indian Land Middle School and enjoy a great time with all the games, booths and food. The festival will be held inside the building so YOU HAVE NO EXCUSE for not going!

Book Sale Committee Meeting

2009-07-05T06:12:00.001-07:00

The Book Sale Committee will meet on Tuesday, August 11, at 7 p.m.

Executive Board Meetings Scheduled

2009-07-05T06:10:00.000-07:00

The Friends Executive Board will meet on the following dates this fall:

September 15

October 13

November 10

All meetings will start at 6:30 and take place at the library

Festival Chairperson

2009-06-14T03:45:00.000-07:00

The Fall Festival Chairman is Jack Ratcliffe from the Rotary Club. Email is Jack.Ratcliffe@allentate.com. The next meeting is at the library on Thursday, June 18th at 7pm.

The Friends group has been asked to take charge of the children's area. If you are interested in helping in this capacity, please come to the meeting or email Jack Ratcliffe. We'd like to have a really strong show of support from our new Friends group.

Book Sale Committee Meeting

2009-06-05T17:01:00.000-07:00

From Becky Zagor, Chair of the Book Sale Committee

Please join me Tuesday, June 9th at 7PM at the library for our first Used Book Sale Committee organizational meeting!

I am very excited about folks who have expressed an interest in helping in any way with this project. We will be talking about a variety of tasks, matching them to your interests and time available, & planning to make a splashing fundraiser to introduce the community to our library services and the ongoing book sale within the library.

If you cannot make the meeting, but are interested in helping, please respond via email.
With appreciation for the service you offer, Becky Zagor Chairperson & book enthusiast

Festival Volunteers Needed

2009-06-04T14:04:00.000-07:00

Are you interested in helping with the Fall Festival as part of the Friends of the Library group? Some people at our meeting on May 5th specifically signed up to help with that project and others of you may simply be willing to help on that day, which is September 26th.

We have been approached by the Rotary and asked if we would consider taking charge of the Children's Area. The Friends have not yet given them a commitment as to what we think we could offer to do. As the Library will receive a significant contribution from the Rotary as a result of the festival, we would like to take as strong a role as possible in planning and volunteering to work at the festival.

Is anyone who would have a strong interest in chairing that effort or, perhaps, sharing that responsibility with another person? It would involve several meetings from now through September - you would be able to judge that once we get more information.

The other opportunity is to volunteer to help out as a Friends member with the area we have committed to on the day of the festival.

Please send an email to us how you feel you can contribute to this effort. We would like to hear from as many of you as possible by June 15th so we can go forward with our planning.

Thank you so much! FYI: The Executive Board will be meeting on June 16th at 6:30 pm at the Del Webb Library.

Summer Reading Program Kicks Off June 6

2009-05-27T17:29:00.001-07:00

Starting next week, Del Webb Library's Summer Reading Program will be underway! Although the kids can start reading and recording their minutes starting June 1st, our real kick-off will be Saturday, June 6th. We will be having a hometown carnival from 10am to 12pm where the kids can sign up for the reading program, play games and visit the library. We are still in need of some volunteers for that day: it would most likely involve running a small game such as a beanbag toss, handing out candy and chatting with the families who come. If you are interested and available (volunteers would need to arrive by 9:30am), please give the library a call at 548-9260. We appreciate your help!

Rotary Holds First Festival Planning Meeting

2009-05-27T16:34:00.000-07:00

Tomorrow night, May 28, at the Indian Land Library, the Indian Land Rotary will hold its' first planning meeting for the Fall into Fun Festival. The meeting is at 7 p.m. in the large meeting room at the library.

The festival is scheduled for September 26 at the Indian Land Middle School. Many volunteers will be needed to make this event a success. Come to the meeting to see where you might be of service.

Indian Land Friends Group Starts Up

2009-05-22T17:28:00.000-07:00

Well, we now have a Friends group for our Indian Land Library! In fact, I may change the name of this blog to Indian Land Friends. Stay tuned.

We began with a meeting in March (maybe?) with everyone who indicated an interest in being in a friends group dedicated to our new library. We had 32 at that meeting, which also included a couple of high school students. From there, we formed a Steering Committee, which began meeting every other week to hammer out by-laws and get a plan for starting up.

Finally on May 19 we elected a slate of officers and approved our bylaws! The next step will be forming our own 501(c)3, so that we can properly handle our funds.

I'll list the officers here later. (When I find the list.) In the meantime, we have decided to form three committees: A Book Sale group, A Friends Shop Group, and a One Book/One Community Group. These three committees will start working on their projects. The Book Sale Group will meet again in a couple of weeks. (I'll obtain the date for you) They will study the logistics and possible time frame for our first sale.

The Friends Shop Group has already been doing a bit of work on the side, organizing books as they come in and putting them on the shelves. The shop itself has already brought in more than $700 dollars in revenue! The new group will work on forming hours, considering decoration, and perhaps some other items that can be sold. For the most part, the money they earn will go right back into the collection of the library.

The One Book/One Community Group will be one that will require much up-front planning. We would like to see if we can get a book selected that everyone in the community will read. Logistics will be the big thing.

If you are interested in joining the Friends, or in helping with these groups, please send us an email. We'll put you in touch with the right folks!

Library Hours

2009-02-08T06:53:00.001-08:00

Monday: 9:00 am - 8:00 pm
Tuesday: 9:00 am - 8:00 pm
Wednesday: 9:00 am - 6:00 pm
Thursday: 9:00 am - 6:00 pm
Friday: 9:00 am - 5:00 pm
Saturday: 9:00 am - 1:00 pm

The Ribbon, she is CUT!

2009-01-11T16:51:00.001-08:00

ILLibRibbonCutting1.09
Originally uploaded by Food Fanatic

Tomorrow the library officially opens for business. I'll post the hours here once I have a chance to find them. We had a great turnout and a wonderful afternoon. Look for stories in both the Gateway and The Fort Mill Times.

Thanks, everyone, for your support!

Next? A Friends group...

Today is the DAY!

2009-01-11T05:04:00.000-08:00

Today is the day we cut the ribbon on the new library. It's at 3 p.m.

After the remarks (which we'll try to keep short), we'll cut the ribbon and have an open house with treats provided by BB&T.

Festival Update

2008-09-27T05:02:00.000-07:00

From The Carolina Gateway

The organizers of the Fall Into Fun Festival have extended the deadline for festival sponsorships through

Friday, Sept. 19. The festival is organized by the Indian Land Rotary Club and Carolina Gateway. Proceeds

from the third annual festival, set for 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Oct. 4 at Indian Land Middle School, will benefit

the new Del Webb Library at Indian Land. Festival organizers hope to raise $25,000 for the library’s

browsing area.

The festival’s major ($1,000) sponsors are Mulvaney for S.C. Senate, Lancaster County School District

and Springs Memorial Hospital. At the $250 level are Carolina First Bank and First Citizens Bank in Indian Land.

T-shirt sponsors ($100) are Carolina Chiropractor & Wellness, Founders Federal Credit Union, Faith

Presbyterian Church, Barry Adams Allstate Agency and Coldwell Banker United.

Festival sponsorship opportunities include:

For $100, business name will be featured on the festival T-shirt. Each sponsor will receive two free T-shirts;

all festival volunteers will wear the T-shirt on the day of the festival; and the shirts will be available to the

public to buy for $5 each.

For $250, your business name will be featured on the festival T-shirt and festival map, which will be distributed

to festival attendees as they arrive. For $500, your business name will be featured on the festival T-shirt and

festival map, and on a sign in the festival area of your choice. For $1,000, your business name will be featured

on the festival T-shirt and festival map, on a banner at the festival area you choose to sponsor and on the festival

entrance banner.

To be a sponsor, contact Steve Ness at (803) 548-4561, (704) 231-1998 or scness808@aol.com.

The festival will offer a silent auction; business and arts and crafts fairs; car and bike shows; children’s area

with petting zoo, pony rides, games and crafts; teen activities; and live entertainment with local bands. A

few local celebrities may also be making appearances at the festival.

Organizers are still seeking volunteers, business, arts and crafts and food vendors, silent auction items,

bands and children’s activities and entertainers for the annual festival.

Businesses that wish to rent booths may contact Fred Witherspoon at (704) 488-5008 or

fwitherspoon@gmail.com.

Artists and crafters may contact Jane Alford at (803) 283-1154 or cgnews@thelancasternews.com.

Bands or entertainers who wish to perform for free may contact Ernie Holmes at (704) 681-4275 or eholmes@gendelman.com.

Food vendors may contact Laura Loughry at (803) 396-3917 or Ed Cook at (803) 548-7646.

Those who wish to donate items to the silent auction may contact Suzy McCain at (704) 534-5746 or suzy.mccain@hotmail.com.

Those interested in providing children’s activities may call Pat Lowe at (803) 548-5878 or (803) 367-2432 or slowe9@carolina.rr.com.

Those who would like to volunteer may call Judy Fuller at (803) 548-7894.

Organizers will meet with volunteers at 6 p.m. Sept. 23 in the cafeteria of Indian Land Middle School. Anyone interested

in helping is welcome to attend.

Fall into Fun Festival

2008-08-24T12:55:00.000-07:00

The festival date has been moved to Saturday, Oct. 4 so as to not conflict with the A.J. State Park Festival of Legends. Nearby Waxhaw is having their festival the last Saturday of September too, so this move to October 4 should be good for all involved.

The building is going up right on schedule, and we hope to open our doors right before Christmas.
We are very pleased that the Lancaster County Council has decided to give us the last $200,000 we needed to complete the project.

You can view photos of the building on the main branch website: Lancaster County Library.

Stuff's Happening...

2008-03-12T04:32:00.001-07:00

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!

2007-12-03T08:34:00.001-08:00

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

2007-10-03T11:57:00.001-07:00

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!

2007-10-02T13:38:00.000-07:00

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

2007-09-25T07:27:00.000-07:00

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

2007-09-24T08:23:00.000-07:00

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!!

2007-09-11T13:23:00.001-07:00

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!

2007-09-11T06:58:00.000-07:00

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?

Fall Into Fun Update

2007-09-10T09:18:00.000-07:00

Carolina Gateway: September 12

Indian Land-September 29 is fast approaching and volunteers have been scouring Indian Land, Fort Mill and beyond, looking for fun things to see and do at the second annual Fall into Fun Festival to benefit the new Indian Land Library.

The day will begin with a 5k Run/Walk & Toddler Trot, called “Running to Read.” Sponsored by Crossroads Lutheran Church and Barry Adams Allstate, the run will begin at 8:30 and be over by the time the festival starts at 10 a.m. Registration forms are available for download. Email runningtoread@yahoo.com for more information. All participants will receive a festival t-shirt and there will be cash prizes for fastest male and female runners, as well as gifts for all children.

Plans for the children’s area at the festival are coming together nicely, with craft tables being offered by area churches (7 so far, with more to register soon), an inflatable moon bounce, a petting zoo (bigger this year – with more animals, including a llama), children’s performers in the library staging area, and also an outdoor living room with storytelling, book reading, songs and entertainment by Indian Land teachers. The library area will have a juggler, magician, puppets and professional storyteller. Wristbands for all children’s and teen activities are $5 and will work in both areas.

The teen area is still not quite together, but we know we will have a couple of U.S. Army Humvees, a NASCAR show car, and a pitching machine. We are working on a dunking booth, mechanical bull, and a skateboard area. We have also booked “The Walls of Elim,” a teen Christian Rock band from Lancaster, and have a few Indian Land school student groups that will play short sets throughout the day. Watch this column next week for more information about this area. We expect to have more confirmed activities by mid-week. If you have a line on skateboard stuff, or if you have a teen band that would like to play, please let us know. Email us at indianlandlibrary@gmail.com.

The business area is already larger than last year, with close to 90 registered businesses and artists. And the food offerings will be quite diverse: Lee Blackwell’s BBQ, Mike’s Old Fashioned Ice Cream, Figaro’s Pizza, Paul’s Hot Dogs, and the Indian Land and Pleasant Valley Fire Departments will all be on hand to ensure full stomachs.

A car and motorcycle show, silent auction, and 50/50 raffle are all planned, so this festival promises to have something for everyone.

Also as a closing note: watch next Sunday’s Lancaster News. Bid advertisements for the Indian Land library project will be in the September 16 edition. We should be able to break ground by November 1. It’s really going to happen, folks!

Indian Land's 'living room,' Within Reach

2007-08-16T10:37:00.000-07:00

By Jenny Overman Fort Mill Times
(Published August 8, 2007)

Checking out the New York Times bestseller list, reading the current issue of Time Magazine and gathering with friends and neighbors at the community library isn't just an idea tossed around during board meetings anymore.
For Indian Land residents, it's nearly a reality.

In just a few weeks, the Lancaster County Library Board hopes to begin taking bids for the construction of the Del Webb Library at Indian Land.

At the library board's July 23 meeting, the board voted to go out for bids "as soon as is practical."

A few minor permitting and utility issues need to be resolved first, according to board Chairwoman and Indian Land resident Karen Paulson, but the board hopes to begin taking bids by the end of August or early September.

The board also approved a timeline for construction. It hopes to break ground on the Indian Land library around mid-September and opening the library's doors about a year after construction begins, in the fall 2008.

The library will be built on Hwy. 521 in the commercial development planned for Sun City Carolina Lakes. With no local library, Panhandle residents have to drive to Lancaster, Rock Hill or Fort Mill for books and services.

This library will be more than just a place that holds books, Paulson said. It will be a community asset.

"I characterize the Indian Land library as being Indian Land's living room," Paulson said. "I've been so excited because this library is our community gathering place. This is where people can come and sit down with their favorite book and a newspaper and a cup of coffee and just read and enjoy the people around them."

Del Webb, the developers of Sun City, contributed 2 acres for the library and $1.5 million for construction. More than $300,000 has been raised for the furnishings and books for the new library, which brings the fund $442,000 short of its goal.

The shortfall could mean that the library opens with fewer books than the board had planned, Paulson said.

When complete, the library will be just over 11,000 square feet and capable of holding between 40,000 and 50,000 books.

The next library fundraiser will be the Fall into Fun festival scheduled for Saturday, Sept. 29, at Sun City. In addition to the food, games and vendors featured at last year's festival, this year's festival will include a 5K run sponsored by Crossroads Lutheran Church.

The Indian Land library has been a project of the county's for more than four years. When Paulson joined the library board in 2004, she hoped to be part of the planning for an Indian Land library. Three years later, Paulson said, she feels like a new homeowner preparing to build her first home.

And like a new homeowner, Paulson has a few lingering concerns about the library's finances.

Some of the money pledged for the Indian Land library won't actually be donated for several years.

For example, the developers of Bretagne, a gated community off Barberville Road, pledged $100,000 to the library. That money won't be donated for two years, as stipulated in the agreement between Bretagne and the county.

"The board is going to have to explore the possibility of borrowing against our pledges just to open," Paulson said.

Paulson is also worried about paying salaries for employees for the new library. Eventually, the library board expects the Indian Land library to need three full-time and three part-time employees, she said.

No funding was allocated for the Indian Land library in Lancaster County's 2007-2008 budget, but County Librarian Richard Band said he is working with the county council on library funding for the 2008-2009 budget.

"We couldn't ask for money for staff because we won't be opening until fall of 2008, but I will be communicating with the council how much staff and operating cost will be needed between now and the opening," Band said. "It'll be interesting because I know money is always tight."

IL Library Draws Closer to Reality

2007-08-02T05:40:00.000-07:00

Officials hope to be receiving bids next month
By Jenny Hartley, Carolina Gateway

The permitting process has begun for the new Del Webb Library at Indian Land. Lancaster County Library Director Richard Band hopes the permitting process will be far enough along by late August or early September for the county to take bids on the project. Permits have to be obtained from S.C. Department of Health and Environmental Control, S.C. Department of Transportation and Lancaster County Water and Sewer District for construction.

The library will be built along U.S. 521 in the commercial development of Sun City Carolina
Lakes, called Carolina Commons. The Lancaster County Library Board met with Danny Shelley,
architect for the project on July 23. The library board unanimously approved a motion to put the project out to bid “as soon as practical.” Bids have to be advertised for 30 days, and construction bids are typically good for 60 days, as construction prices go up and down often.
Library plans Shelley went over plans for the library board during the meeting.

There will be a covered entrance to the building that enters into a lobby with a 17-foot ceiling.
Twenty spaces in the parking lot will be golf-cart only to accommodate Sun City residents,
with 46 regular car spaces and two handicapped spaces. The public meeting room and
restrooms will be accessible even after the rest of the library is closed for the day, giving
Indian Land a much-needed public meeting place.

An outdoor reading court will be a feature the other two libraries in Lancaster County don’t
have. There will be children and adult sections, a Friends of the Library gift shop, an area to
showcase Indian Land’s history, study rooms, offices, a conference room, new book area and
public access computers for adults and children. The adult section will have a cathedral ceiling.
Shelley said the angle and shape of the architecture of the building is very reminiscent of an arrowhead. “It is Indian Land, so I thought that was very appropriate,” Shelley said. “I’m real excited and I think the public will like it because you walk in and it’s not just flat ceilings.”

Library board chairwoman Karen Paulson said the look to the new library is similar to the
new Indian Land High School. Books to cost $225,000 The construction and furnishing
cost of the library is $2.2 million. Del Webb, the company developing Sun City Carolina
Lakes, contributed 2 acres and $1.5 million to construction costs. The library has received
pledges from individuals, developers, local businesses like Springs Memorial Hospital and
Founders Federal Credit Union and a $100,000 grant from the J. Marion Sims Foundation.
Lancaster County Library Director Richard Band said it will take about $225,000 to get
the library stocked with a third of its capacity in books for its opening. That’s about 12,500
books. “Actual funds on hand and our ability to process that many books could reduce this number significantly,” Band said. “Furniture, shelving and equipment is another $200,000. Assuming the Del Webb $1.5 million and funds raised so far pay for construction, we still have all of that to raise.” At full capacity, the library would hold about 40,000 books – 25,000 for adults and 15,000 for children. But the library won’t open at full capacity because it will need room for
the collection to expand.

Another festival fundraiser, Fall into Fun, is being planned for Sept. 29. The festival is sponsored by Sun City Carolina Lakes, Carolina Gateway and the Indian Land Rotary Club. Last year’s festival raised about $10,000 for the library, and this year’s festival organizers hope to
raise at least $20,000.

Library benefit, Taste of the Carolinas are coming

2007-07-29T06:25:00.000-07:00

Organizers of Sept. 29 fall festival at Sun City hope to raise $20,000
CHRIS MCGINN-The Charlotte Observer

Mark your calendars now for the second Fall into Fun Festival to benefit the Del Webb Library at Indian Land.
This communitywide event will be held at Sun City Carolina Lakes on Sept. 29 from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m., with a separate Taste of the Carolinas event beginning at 6 p.m.
Special guest entertainer Richard Simmons will be on hand, and the day will be capped with evening fireworks.
Last year's festival raised nearly $10,000 for the future library, and organizers hope to double that amount this year.
Karen Paulson, Lancaster County library board chairwoman, said the board would begin receiving bids for construction of the $2.2 million library in August. (kp: Actually I said we HOPE to be receiving bids by then)Construction should begin by year's end.
Festival planners include the Indian Land Rotary Club and a team of more than 30 community members. Lots of volunteers are still needed for the day of the event, and business and crafts vendors can set up booths at the festival.
Karen said they also need someone to lead the teen area of the festival and vendors to provide activities. Last year's provider of a rock-climbing wall and skate park is no longer in business. (kp: Actually the climbing wall was provided by JROTC. We hope to have that again this year. It's Estrada Extreme Sports, last year's provider of the skate park, that is no longer in business)

For more information on ways you can help, visit http://indianlandlibrary.blogspot.com or e-mail indianlandlibrary@gmail.com.

Moving Ahead

2007-07-26T12:31:00.000-07:00

This past Monday, July 23, I took over as chairperson of the Lancaster County Library Board. Between you, me, and the fencepost, there really is not much to it. Show up to the meetings (every other month) on time, start the meeting on time, know a little of Robert's Rules, and then get out of Dodge with the budget still in the black.

I've been on the board since...hmm...2004? I think so. I can't really remember. I took over the Indian Land spot from Pat Lowe, media specialist at ILEMS.

When I first accepted the position from then councilman Stanley Smith, I asked Pat what the library board was working on.

"Well, we've been trying to get a library up here the entire time I've been on it," she said. "Maybe you'll be lucky and it'll get built while you are on."

It looks like that will happen! Last Monday as I led the meeting, I entertained a motion to accept the plans for the new Del Webb Library @ Indian Land. AND, I entertained a motion to go for bids "as soon as is practical." The motions were carried unanimously.

As I listened to our architect, Danny Shelley, tell us that we are all ready to go...our part is done...I glanced down at the draft of the bid specs and saw my name in huge letters on the front. Bids will be submitted to Karen Paulson, Chair, Lancaster County Library.

It doesn't matter that I don't know the first thing about bids or buildings or temperatures at which concrete must be poured. We have professionals for that. But I am completely in awe of the responsibility and honor of being part of the board as we embark on this adventure. It's going to be hard for me to not feel like a proud owner the first time I walk into our new library!

We hope to go out for bid at the end of September. There are still some final permits to obtain, some final things to iron out about the utilities. But once those bids are received and accepted, we will hit the ground running. We still have a little more than $400k to raise, but we are really hoping that Indian Land will catch the fever and drop in their nickels and dimes when they start seeing the bricks being laid.

Invitation to Help with 5K Run

2007-07-20T18:13:00.000-07:00

From Mitzie Schafer, Crossroads Lutheran Church:

This is an invitation to help with the first Indian Land 5K Run/Walk. I will be sending out letters to all the local churches to help with things like water, t-shirts, registration, marking off the roads, prizes, making and handing out brochures, etc. Money and foot work are needed prior to and the day of. the run will be held first thing in the morning, so you will not miss out on any of the days events. You can read about the event in this week's Gateway. If any of you would like to help put this together a meeting will be held next Thursday evening (July 16)at 7:30 PM at Crossroads Lutheran Church. Please come if you interested in serving the community in this way.

Please email this to anyone you think would be interested in helping! THANKS!

Quick Details:
The run will be called: Running to Read The Indian Land 5K Run/Walk and Toddler Trot for Literacy.
All proceeds will go to the new Indian Land Library.
The time will be at 8:30 AM with registration from 7:45 to 8:15 AM
Date: Saturday, September 29th, 2007
Location: Begin at Indian Land High School and end at Sun City - tentative.
Registrations should be mailed to: Running to Read 8511 Shelley Mullis Rd
Checks payable to: Running to Read
Strollers and families will be allowed
1st Prize Male: $100.00
1st Prize Female: $100.00
Toddler Trot Prizes: Some type of book for all the children
T-shirts for every runner
Entry Fee: $25.00 5K adult participants, $15.00 for children in Toddler trot (Adults are free if they registered for the 5K, if not $15.00)
Sun City residents are invited to be in their yards with sprinklers to cool runners off.

Help Needs:
Mail out registration forms
Collect registration forms
Design, organize sizes, and order t-shirts
Design and copy running numbers/purchase safety pins
Organize something to mark off the roads for runners, and so cars do not come into their lane.
Folks to "man" the registration table
Group to hand out water during the race/and the end of race
Group to hand out t-shirts at the end of the race
Someone to purchase the water and bananas for the end of race, or get them donated.
Someone to get Toddler Trot prizes donated: a book preferably.

Anything I forgot...we will need help with that also!

Mitzie Schafer
Crossroads Lutheran Church
"A Place Where Love Lives!"
8511 Shelley Mullis Rd*
Fort Mill SC 29707
803-547-8311
crossroadslutheran@yahoo.com www.crossroadslutheran.org
Jason Schafer, Pastor
Mitzie Schafer, AIM

Library Project Update

2007-07-20T08:27:00.000-07:00

The Carolina Gateway, June 27, 2007-
BY JENNY HARTLEY
jhartley@thelancasternews.com

Indian Land Action Council President Mack McDonald wonders why no work has been done on the Del Webb Library at Indian Land. The library is slated to be built in Carolina Commons, the
commercial district at Sun City Carolina Lakes. Del Webb, which is developing Sun City, contributed 2 acres of land and $1.5 million toward construction of the library. McDonald said Del Webb has built 1,000 homes at Sun City and what he called a “fancy” entrance at the retirement community for the age 55 and up crowd. The company also landscaped the median in front of the development. But only a sign marks where the library will be. Some of the action council is disheartened that work hasn't begun, McDonald said. “Nothing has happened,” he
said. “I've worked in government for 25 years and I understand the wheels of government
turn slowly. But the library stalled. I'm kind of disappointed in that.”

Karen Paulson, who becomes chairwoman of the Lancaster County Library Board on July 1,
said the library has been delayed several times, but she expects bids for the project to
go out in mid-July. “This is a joint effort between Lancaster County, RED Partners (the developing company for Carolina Commons) and Sun City,” Paulson said. “There were some glitches to be worked out.” But work so far has moved slowly because it takes time to
work out planning a library for a commercial center. The latest delay is getting a vacant home on the site torn down or moved. Original plans were to give it away to someone
who would pay to move it. Now the library board is looking for bids to tear it down. Paulson said she's beginning to get worried that Lancaster County won't be able to come up with more funding for the library before books and furnishings need to be bought. Those items will need to be bought before the county's next budget year, which will begin July 1, 2008.

The construction and furnishing cost of the library is $2.2 million. Including Del Webb’s $1.5 million, outstanding pledges and pledges already received, the library has about $1.9 million so far. County Council negotiated for Del Webb's contribution and for a $100,000 contribution from the developers of Bretagne, a high-end neighborhood in Indian Land. Some of the pledges the library has received will not be made until 2008 or 2009. For example, Founders Federal
Credit Union’s pledge of $50,000 will be made over five years. Bretagne's contribution won’t come to the county until 2009.

Lancaster County Library Director Richard Band asked County Council in a June 11 letter to include the library in a bond issue the council was considering to build a new magistrate's
office and buy new computers for the county and heavy equipment for the public works
department. County Council did not discuss including the library's needs in the bond issue.

Once ground breaks at the site and work starts, Paulson said she feels donations for the
library will begin to pick up. “Once we start seeing some activity on the site, I think the
personal donations will pick up, but even the corporations and businesses will start getting
excited,” Paulson said.

County Councilman Bryan Vaughn, who represents Indian Land, said County Council has
designated large contributions from developers to the library. “The Bretagne money could
have gone to the general fund,” Vaughn said. “We just said up front that you’re going to designate $100,000 to the library.” Vaughn said he thinks there's ample money now to build the library. Once construction begins, he believes more contributions will be made. “Everything else will fall into place,” he said.

In other Library News: The Carolina Gateway and Sun City are organizing another "Fall into Fun" festival for the Del Webb Library at Indian Land. Last year’s festival raised about $9,000. Organizers expect this year’s festival, set for Sept. 29, to raise at least $20,000.

To reserve a booth, volunteer or just for details, call Carolina Gateway editor Jane Alford at 803.283.1154.

Lancaster County Library News

2007-07-19T11:36:00.000-07:00

From the Carolina Gateway
Lancaster County Library Director Richard Band participated in Connecting to Collections: The National Conservation Summit last week in Washington, D.C. Only four representatives –
two from museums and two from libraries – from each state and the District of Columbia were selected to attend this national conference sponsored by the U.S. Institute of Museum and Library Services.

The event underscored the risks that endanger America’s books, works of art, documents, and other treasures and promoted solutions for saving them. Those selected to attend the summit have a strong commitment to conservation and are among the best people in the country to spearhead a national conservation initiative, said IMLS Director Anne-Imelda Radice. “After the summit, we hope that the conversation about saving invaluable collections will continue in communities across the U.S.”

Participants at the meeting represented small and medium-sized museums, libraries and historic organizations with a proven dedication and commitment to conservation. They were joined at the meeting by national leaders in conservation, government officials and leaders in private sector support for conservation.

The Lancaster County Library houses an extensive collection of manuscript material related
to local history and genealogy. For the past two years, the library has used an IMLS grant to inventory and organize these holdings to preserve them and make them available to students
and researchers. Project Director Joanne Ellis has created a Web site – http://history.lanclib.org – where users can survey the scope of the collections, including photographs. The grant is administered by the S.C. State Library under the federal Library Services and Technology Act. Heritage Preservation, the national organization devoted to
preserving America’s heritage, is cooperating with IMLS to organize the summit. Heritage Preservation’s 2005 report, A Public Trust at Risk: the Heritage Health Index Report on the State of America’s Collections, revealed that there are 4.8 billion artifacts held in this country’s archives, libraries, museums and historical societies – many of these in small- to medium-sized towns and cities.

The Institute of Museum and Library Services is the primary source of federal support for
the nation’s 122,000 libraries and 17,500 museums. The institute’s mission is to create strong
libraries and museums that connect people to information and ideas. To learn more about the
institute, go to www.imls.gov.

Festival for new Library will Bigger & Better

2007-07-19T11:17:00.000-07:00

From The Carolina Gateway, July 18, 2007

The Carolina Gateway newspaper and Sun City: Carolina Lakes have announced plans for their
second annual "Fall into Fun" festival to benefit the Del Webb Library at Indian Land.

The event will take place on Sept. 29 on the grounds of Sun City. (The date was changed so that the festival would not conflict with the Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure in Charlotte on Oct. 6.)

Last year’s festival earned more than $11,000 for the Indian Land branch of Lancaster County Library. The new library is expected to open next year.

About 25 people came to a planning meeting at The Lake House on July 12 and volunteered to coordinate various areas of the festival. “Sun City Carolina Lakes is allowing us twice as much
space as last year, so I think this festival has the potential to bring in a lot more than last year’s,” said organizer Jane Alford, editor of Carolina Gateway. “We’ll have a business fair, which was popular last year, and we hope to draw more artists and craftspeople.”

“We’re trying to get a hot air balloon ride set up, some sort of car/motorcycle/golf cart show, more children’s events, and rotating bands on the stage,” Alford said. “Sun City is also planning to bring in a very special guest that day who should really boost attendance.”

Running to Read, a 5K run sponsored by Crossroads Lutheran Church, will be held in conjunction with the festival. Proceeds from the run will also go to the library.

Festival organizers are also planning a “Taste of the Carolinas,” an upscale food event to be held in the evening. Music and fireworks will cap the day.

The Del Webb Library at Indian Land is a $2.2 million project. To date, $1,758,000 has been raised, leaving a shortfall of about $442,000. The library plans to go out for bids this summer.

If you are interested in helping organize the festival, or are a vendor who would like to rent a booth, send an e-mail to Indianlandlibrary@ gmail.com. or call Jane Alford at (803) 283-1154.
Volunteers and those interested in leading committees will meet at 7 p.m. July 26 at the Lake House at Sun City Carolina Lakes.

Post Festival Re-Hash

2006-10-25T05:23:00.000-07:00

It was a fantastic day! I have no idea how many came to the festival, but it felt like a couple thousand. And we made over $11,000.

We had a couple people come to the Friends of the Library booth and give us checks for over $500. And we had people join the Friends group, too.

We have some tentative pledges in the works from some utilities and big corporations. And next week the library board will meet with County Council to talk about money again, too. We hope to have some announcements to make in the coming weeks.

So who knows? We could end up pretty close to reaching our fundraising goals. Before the first spade of dirt has even been turned!

Now we just have to get going with the commercial developer. We have been waiting for them to render drawings of the retail area so that we can get started on our project. We are not completely sure why they are waiting. Perhaps they don't have firm commitments from retailers? Whatever the reason, we have to know what they are going to do so that we can get started on the bid process. Our facade has to match theirs. And of course we will be hooking onto their streets.

Festival Day!

2006-10-14T03:07:00.000-07:00

We've gotten some unusual calls these past couple of days. From vendors saying they don't know where the festival is, what time to come set up, what to bring. We mailed letters out to every vendor that registered and none of come back undeliverable.

So here are the basic details about today.

The festival is at Sun City. Enter at Highway 521. That road is Del Webb Boulevard. Go down about 1/2 mile. At the second right, turn in. That's the sales center. Get someone to tell you where your booth is, and then unload all your equipment. Exit the festival area, turning right on Del Webb Boulevard again. Go down until you cross a bridge/Dam structure. Turn left. You will be entering a construction area. Park your vehicle anywhere in there and catch a minivan shuttle back to the festival area.

The entire festival takes place outdoors, with the exception of the silent auction. The auction is inside the sales center on the right side. There is an entrance on the side of the sales center building.

Vendors are supplying all their tables, chairs, canopies, etc. No power is available.

The Day of the Festival

2006-10-12T04:32:00.000-07:00

The Festival is taking place at Sun City Carolina Lakes. The entrance is off highway 521, just south of Shelley Mullis Road. Enter at the light and go down about 3/4 of a mile. You won't be able to miss the festival on the right in front of the sales center.

We will have JROTC members and sheriff's deputies assisting festival goers with parking. All parking is on Del Webb Boulevard, which is about 3 miles long. Park your car along there and start walking back to the festival. Minivans and golf carts will pick up walkers and shuttle them back and forth all day.

The silent auction starts at 10 a.m. and will be held in the sales center. To enter the auction, you'll need to go the right side of the building, by the artist's colony. Bidding stops at 3 p.m. Winning bidders can pick up their items and pay for them at the main booth in front of the sale center. We will accept cash, check and Visa cards.

Wristbands and raffle tickets for the Indian Land quilt will be sold at the main festival booth in front of the sales center. THANKS to Founders Credit Union for handling our money!!

2006-10-11T13:25:00.000-07:00

Jamison Jamieson, left, and Linda McCorkle display the Indian Land quilt they made. They are donating the quilt to the Fall Into Fun Festival. The quilt will be raffled and the proceeds from the quilt will go the new Del Webb Library at Indian Land.

Join us for Fall into Fun festival Saturday
From Carolina Gateway
After months of planning and anticipation, the day is finally almost here. Carolina Gateway, Sun City Carolina Lakes and Estrada Extreme Sports are sponsoring the Fall into Fun festival at Sun City from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday. The festival is a fund-raiser for the Del Webb Library at Indian Land, which will be built on commercial acreage at Sun City early next year. There will be food and fun for everyone, but festival organizers, including Carolina Gateway staff and Lancaster County Friends of the Library board members, are especially looking forward to seeing smiling faces in the children's and teen areas of the festival. Teens will have a chance to scale a climbing wall and test their skating prowess on a skating obstacle course. There will also be skateboard demonstrations at the course. In the afternoon, the teen band Fervent will play in the skateboarding area. A separate children's area will have plenty to keep the younger set busy. Claude Ellis will bring his petting zoo, Have Pets Will Travel, with a small menagerie of animals for cuddling. There will be a llama and miniature pony to meet, along with chickens, rabbits and other small animals. Local churches will offer a variety of craft activities for children. An "outdoor living room" will be set up by the Lancaster County Library system where there will be storytelling by book-reading teachers and librarians. A small puppet theater will offer puppet shows. Roving storybook characters in costume will visit with children and pose for photos. Photographers will sell photos of children with the characters for a fee that will benefit the library. The most unique exhibit in the children's area will be Indian Land Elementary/Middle School science teacher Denise Trufan's inflatable planetarium. Students will be able to go inside the planetarium to hear a story about the solar system and identify the constellations on the walls. Wristbands will be available for $5, giving children access all day to the many activities in the children¹s area. For $10, youngsters can get a wristband access to both the teen and children's areas. Adults will enjoy looking over the many business booths and visiting the artists' colony, where area artists will have their wares on display for sale. Businesses and artists who purchase booth space at the festival are donating items to the festival's silent auction. Handmade baby items, Carolina Panther items, baskets of dog grooming supplies, rubber stamps, specialty food treats and an area rug are among the many items to be auctioned off. Leroy Springs Co. is giving a two-night stay at Springmaid Beach, Springfield Golf Club is donating two rounds of golf and York Technical College is providing a certificate for a free short course. The festival food area will offer up many tasty dishes, including barbecue and pizza from local pizzeria Figaro's. Chick-fil-A will be there, as well as the Pleasant Valley and Indian Land volunteer fire departments. Legacy Park resident Joe Dellinger will offer bratwursts. Many of the food vendors are giving all or part of their profits to the library.
Outside the food area, Midnight Sun Coffee and Di-Dee¹s Diner will offer beverages and desserts to folks that wish to relax on the grass and enjoy some light music played by Sun City resident Larry Cooper. The festival will also feature a motorcycle show from 11 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. Bikes will compete in six classes: touring, softail, sportster, shovelhead, radical and antique. Trophies will be awarded for first and second place in each class. Winners will be picked by festival-goers who will get to vote for their favorites. For details or to sign up, call David "Coot" Freeman at
(803) 548-7536 or (803) 242-8011 or Jane Alford at (803) 283-1154. Cost is $20 per bike, which will go to the new library. Twenty different sponsors helped get festival T-shirts printed. The shirts will sell for $8-12 each, depending on size. Those attending need to be sure to pick up a shirt for a souvenir of Indian Land's first community-wide festival. Profits from the T-shirt sales will go to the library. Volunteers to work the festival are still needed.

Festival Update: October 11, 2006

2006-10-11T13:24:00.000-07:00

The Fall into Fun Festival is only three days away and I’m starting to get excited about the day!
This past week Rena Livengood and I met with Heather Himes of the teen rock band “Fervent.” The group has been together only eight months, but they have already put many miles under their belts, traveling as far as Tulsa, OK to play at youth events. They are also regular hosts of “Generation Alive,” a quarterly youth event at Open Door Fellowship in Lancaster. I encourage you to visit their website, http://www.myspace.com/FERVENT5, where you can read their bios, listen to samples of their music, and see what other events they have on their calendar.
We received a bit of bad news this week. Wendy’s Hamburgers had to pull out of the festival due to equipment problems. Wendy’s graciously asked us to keep their booth rental fee as a donation to the library. Thank you Wendy’s! We’ll be sure to catch you at a future festival. We continue to be bowled over by the generosity of our sponsors, Sun City, The Carolina Gateway, and Estrada Extreme, but we also are amazed by all the small ways people have stepped up to help, both with their time and money. As a result, we have not had to spend any significant money at all to put on this event. The last time I checked, I think we’d spent less than $200 of library funds to put on this event. Most of that has been for postage and office supplies.

When Wendy’s notified us that they would be unable to come, we immediately thought of J.O. McCorkle. J.O. is a “can-do” guy with the Indian Land Volunteer Fire Department. Ed Cook, our food area chairperson, called J.O. and said “Hey! We need some burgers at the festival!” J.O. immediately agreed to flip some for the festival, despite the fact that he and his crew will be serving at the football game the night before.
We have only one lingering concern about the day. We still have several golf carts and three minivans that need to be driven that day, to shuttle festival goers to and from their cars. Email us at Indianlandlibrary@gmail.com and volunteer to take an hour or two behind the wheel.
See you Saturday!

Festival Update: October 4, 2006

2006-10-11T13:21:00.000-07:00

This week I want to tell you a little about the artist’s colony we are having at the “Fall into Fun” festival to benefit the new Indian Land Library.
We have room for 26 artists and crafters to show and sell their wares at the festival. The booths will be scattered around a grassy area to the right of the Sun City Sales Center. There is a gentle, winding sidewalk there and booths will be placed on either side of that. We are looking forward to it being a pleasant place for festival goers to see some of the arts and crafts that are going on in our community. Currently we have about half of the spaces filled with woodworkers, bead crafts, painters and baskets. We’d love to see some quilters, potters, sculptors … we know there are some out there. Please contact the library or Stacey Vaughn to let us know you are interested in bringing your art to the festival.
I have been stopped on the street regularly by folks who want to volunteer at the festival. I have not, however, managed to keep any names! Please contact me via email at Indianlandlibrary@gmail.com or call me at 803.547.0332. I am going to be looking for people to help with a hand washing station and balloons in the children’s area and licensed drivers to drive golf carts and minivans for shuttling. We are also still hoping to have people willing to dress up in storybook character costumes to greet children in the children’s area.

Festival Updates

2006-09-24T14:22:00.000-07:00

I've been remiss in getting these festival updates posted. These stories have appeared in The Carolina Gateway the past couple of weeks. We are also getting some wonderful coverage from The Fort Mill Times and The Charlotte Observer! Thank you!

To Appear September 27, 2006:

One exciting aspect of the “Fall into Fun” festival that we have not mentioned very much is the silent auction. Businesses and artists that purchase booth space at the festival are all donating items to our silent auction. In fact, we have a couple of businesses and individuals that are not going to have booths that are donating items anyway. For example, Floy Ervin and Linda McCorkle are each donating handmade baby items. Linda Jones of Sun City has an oil painting she is donating. David and Tracey Langton of Legacy Park are giving a bag of Carolina Panther items. These are just a few of the items that we know about to date.

Silent auction items vary in size and scope. We’ll have baskets of dog grooming supplies, rubber stamps, and one filled with specialty food treats from Young Plantations. There will certificates to bid on as well. So far we know about an area rug from Sistare Carpets, a heating and cooling tune-up from Standard Heating & Cooling, a large insulated rolling picnic basket from Prudential Carolinas, a kitchen item from Pampered Chef, a framed print from Springs Memorial Hospital, two replacement windows with installation included from Southern Pride Contractors, and a handcrafted item from Overman Woodworks of Fort Mill. Leroy Springs Recreation is giving two nights stay at Springmaid Beach, Springfield Golf Club is donating two rounds of golf, and York Technical College is providing a certificate for a free short course.

We also will have a quilt made by Linda McCorkle and Jamison Jamieson that will be raffled. Raffle tickets will be sold at the Friday night football game in Indian Land the night before and during the day at the festival.

If you or your business is interested in donating an item to the silent auction, please call Linda McCorkle at 548.1288 or email us at Indianlandlibrary@gmail.com

Appeared September 20, 2006:

There has been much fanfare about the teen area at the “Fall into Fun” festival. We are excited about Estrada Extreme and the National Guard and all they plan to do for our teens attending the event. Teens will have a chance to scale a climbing wall and skateboard on the skating obstacle course. There will be skateboard demonstrations at the course, as well.

A separate children’s area will have plenty to keep the younger set busy. Kay Hoffman, owner of Earth Angels, will bring a small menagerie of animals to be petted and cuddled. There will be a llama and miniature pony to meet, as well as a selection of chickens, rabbits and other small animals.

Craft tables provided by local churches will offer a variety of activities for children. We want to thank these churches for signing up to offer crafts: All Saints Lutheran, Belair United Methodist Church, Crossroads Lutheran, Gold Hill AME Zion, Higher Ground, Pleasant Hill United Methodist Church, Sonrise Tabernacle and The Well. These churches are footing the bill for craft materials to benefit the library. We also will have tables with activities offered by the Lancaster County Schools Media Specialists, the Indian Land National Junior Honor Society and Indian Land Elementary and Middle School teachers. Many thanks to the schools for supporting our new library!

An “outdoor living room” will be set up by the Lancaster County Library system as well. Storytelling and book-reading teachers and librarians will be in that area throughout the day. A small puppet theatre will offer puppet shows. Roving storybook characters in costume will visit with children and pose for photos. We hope to have a photographer who will sell photos of children with the characters for a fee that will benefit the library.

I almost forgot the most unusual activity in the children’s area. Elementary Science Specialist Denise Trufan plans to bring her inflatable planetarium! Students will be able to go inside her planetarium with her and hear a story about the solar system. Then they will identify constellations on the walls.

As you can see, we have plenty of things to do for the under-13 crowd. Wristbands will be available for $5 and will allow your child access all day to the many activities in the children’s area. $10 wristbands will be sold for access to both the teen and children’s areas.
This area will be bustling with activities and we can certainly use some volunteers (both children and adults) to dress in costume and also to help keep traffic flowing smoothly. Trufan also needs some intergalactic buddies to help shepherd youngsters in and out of the planetarium. We will schedule volunteers to accommodate their availability. If you would like to volunteer to help in this or any other area of the festival, please send an email to Indianlandlibrary@gmail.com.

We plan to see you and your kids and teens at the festival!

Appeared September 13, 2006:

The “Fall into Fun” festival to benefit the Indian Land library is just over a month away and things are beginning to shape up.

Last week we gathered money from 20 different sponsors to get festival t-shirts printed. The shirts will sell for $8-12 each, depending upon the size. This will be the first festival, so you’ll want to be sure to pick up a shirt for a souvenir. Many thanks to the t-shirt sponsors for making that possible:

Belair United Methodist Church

H & R Block Tax & Financial Advisor Services

Figaro's Pizza

Indian Land VFD

Wendy's

Si's Pizzeria

Blackwell-Trimnal, LLC Attorneys-at-Law

Sistare Carpets

803.548.3998

Standard Mechanical Heating and Cooling

EmbroidMe

Southern States Chiropractic

South Carolina Bank & Trust

Lancaster County First Steps

Springs Memorial Hospital

Wachovia Bank

New Day Family Practice

V2K Window Decor and More

Don's Golf Carts

Jeff Woods Painting, Inc.

Our food area promises to have a wide variety of offerings. There will be BBQ, of course, and our two local pizzerias will both be represented — Figaro’s and Si’s Pizzeria. Wendy’s and Chick-fil-A will both be there, as well as the Pleasant Valley and Indian Land Fire Departments. Legacy Park resident Joe Dellinger will offer bratwurst. After all, what is a festival in October without brats?

Many of our vendors are giving all or part of their profits to the library.
Outside the food area, in an area we are calling “The D.J. area,” we’ll have Midnight Sun Coffee and Di-Dee’s Diner. They will offer beverages and desserts to folks that wish to relax on the grass and enjoy some light music played by Sun City resident Larry Cooper. We are also talking to Schwan’s Ice Cream about bringing treats. Ed Cook has done a fantastic job rounding up food vendors.

So come hungry!

Festival News

2006-08-27T08:54:00.000-07:00

We are pleased to announce the addition of Estrada Extreme Sports as a sponsor for the "Fall into Fun" Festival!

Estrada Extreme, owned and operated by Sal Estrada, is an indoor skate park in Lancaster, SC. In addition to skateboarding, they offer other activities for kids of all ages that includes batting cages, fencing lessons, an indoor soccer field, parties and shows. Sal Estrada is dedicated to offering safe and fun activities to the kids of Lancaster.

Estrada is building a custom skate park for us to have at our library festival. He will be offering himself, his employees and equipment to the festival at NO CHARGE to the library. Wristbands will be required for children to enter the teen area, and Estrada Extreme is donating all proceeds from wristband sales to the library, as well.

Estrada is also in the process of booking some TEEN BANDS to come play at the festival. They will begin playing at 2 or 2:30 and go until the festival ends at 4 p.m. These are professional bands.

In addition to the skatepark and bands, we will have batting cages and the National Guard is bringing their portable climbing wall.

We are very excited about the teen area at the festival! Spread the word!

Library Campaign Update

2006-07-29T03:33:00.000-07:00

It's been a while since I've posted an update, but there have been many things going on behind the scenes here.

The festival, "Fall into Fun," is clicking right along and we hope to have some announcements about our exciting TEEN AREA(!!) next week. We are very excited about this particular part of the festival, as we have not seen other area festivals devote so much to that age group. Check back here a week from today and hopefully you'll see some information on that.

Our festival logo has been designed by the graphics department at The Lancaster News:

Many thanks to the graphics people for their work on this logo! If I can figure out how to put that at the top of this blog as a permanent item, I'll do that.

Groups working on food vendors, children's area crafters, artists and businesses, will begin sending out letters and contacting people to see if they'd like to have space at the festival. Sun City is going to send an announcement out to their "lead list," inviting them to come that day to see Sun City and attend the festival. I can't remember if Brooke said there are 3,500 people on the list or 35,000 people on the list!

Another group, the Capital Campaign Steering Committee, has been meeting about every other week and is working diligently to identify larger donors. So far we have worked up a list of 2 or 3 dozen corporations we'd like to contact. Some will be contacted personally by people we determine will be the best "askers," and others are foundation grants we will work on. In our next meeting we'll begin discussing individuals we'd like to talk to. We are also working up a campaign portfolio right now that we can use when we go on these visits. Chris McGinn and Richard Band are working together on that, and we hope to have that pretty much done in another week or so.

The buzz about the library is growing and with it has come some actual, casual mention of donations. We have not seen checks being written yet, but it is time to explain how to give to the library. Here is a run-down of how that works:

To make a donation to the Capital Campaign, make your gift payable to Lancaster County Library, 313 S. White St., Lancaster SC 29720. Designate “Del Webb Library” on your check.. As a governmental entity, the library is tax exempt and all monetary donations to the library are fully tax deductible.

Some donor organizations require recipients to have 501(c) (3) nonprofit status with the Internal Revenue Service. In this case, checks may be made payable to the Friends of the Lancaster County Library in care of the library. The Friends is a 501(c) (3) charitable corporation.

Either way, your gift will be used entirely for expenses related to the building, books and furnishings of the Del Webb Library at Indian Land.

The steering committee is working on a list of specific items that businesses and individuals can sponsor in support of the library. The list will include everything from an entire room, to a bookshelf, to a book. Once we have that, we'll print that list and have pledge cards a available. I will also research ways to make it possible to donate online. AND I'll figure out how to put this "How to Donate" document online so that it can be downloaded from a link on the side.

One area of the funding that we have not really worked on, but it's been percolating in the background, is the county. So far the county has not stepped up to the plate at all with money. This is a travesty, as far as I'm concerned (a personal opinion, of course, but one that is shared by many). There have been NO public libraries EVER built in the State of South Carolina without some commitment by local government. In fact, the remodeling of our own dear Kershaw Branch Library a few years ago (97?) was funded more than a third by county funds. We will begin exploring this in the months to come.

That's it for today! It's an exciting time for this library board member! Things are starting to gel!

Fall Into Fun!

2006-07-11T05:43:00.000-07:00

That is the new slogan for our library festival on October 14. The Lancaster News graphics department has worked up a great logo for us and we should see the final draft on Saturday.

Saturday, July 15 at 11:30 at 521 BBQ. That's our next festival planning meeting. We hope to have dimensions of the event areas (children's, food, business, artists), a plan for what we are going to charge for booths, and hopefully some of the lists of potential vendors to hand out to the committees.

We have committee chairs set up. Each chair should find a couple more people to help them with their work. While each area is fairly small, it still can be a big job for one person to line up all the vendors for their area.

Which brings this to mind: If anyone would like to take over the children's craft vendor area, please email me. Currently I am chairing that, but I'm a bit worried about becoming over-extended. I have a list of area churches to contact. We'd like to invite the area churches to provide craft tables in the children's area. It would involve sending out letters to the churches explaining what we are looking for, and then signing up the ones that are interested.

This week the Steering Committee meets to begin work on the top-tier fundraising. Bryan and Stacey Vaughn will join us for that. We'll begin developing a list of potential donors, corporate and individual, and devising approaches for how to ask for donations.

I'll upload the logo once it's available. We are very excited about it and will go to the Indian Land Chamber meeting on July 25 to ask if they would like to donate money for us to get some shirts printed up. The sooner the better on the shirts. We can start selling them as soon as they are printed...they will be great advertising.

The First $100,000!

2006-07-01T03:51:00.000-07:00

Richard Band, library director, was notified on Wednesday that the Sims Foundation is granting $100,000 for the new Indian Land library.

This is the first donation the project has received.

Festival Plans Underway

2006-06-26T15:06:00.000-07:00

The Festival date has been set! It will October 14, 2006 at Sun City around the Sales Center.

The Festival planning committee, a subcommittee of the Indian Land Action Council, will meet tonight, June 26 at Sun City to walk the grounds and map out the event. I'm reporting now because I won't have time to for several days.

Tentatively, we will have the following activity areas:

1. Children-with a petting zoo, pony rides, storytellers and magicians. We'd like to have craft tables set up, where kids can purchase materials and make items under the tutelage of the vendors. Perhaps the local churches would like to set up tables for this?

2. Food-of course

3. Teens-yes, we plan to have a teen area with a portable skateboard park and perhaps a climbing wall. We have not had something like this in Indian Land before, that anyone remembers, anyway. Their area will be outside a fence from the main part of the festival, but in full view of festival goers.

4. Artist's Colony-We'd like to see local artists come and set up booths displaying their craft or even demonstrating them. They could sell items, as well.

5. A "rest" area-with a DJ, hopefully a Sun City resident, who will spin easy listening music. It's a grassy area where people can spread out with a cup of coffee or ice cream cone and just rest and enjoy the atmosphere.

6. Business booths-These would probably be lining the walkways, not all clumped together in a section.

7. Central Control-an area immediately in front of the Sales Center will have booths for Sun City and The Carolina Gateway, who are sponsors, a central ticketing booth, The Friends of the Library, and the Indian Land Action Council. The Friends will give information about the new library and invite people to join. They will also take donations to the building project. This booth will probably be staffed by some Friends members from Lancaster, maybe some library board members, and maybe some Steering Committee members. The Action Council booth will have Indian Land apparel and other items for sale. Tentative plans are for eurostickers (those oval car stickers with the "city" on it...ours would probably be "IL") to given away free or for a small donation to the library project, t-shirts, bumper stickers, etc. The Action Council will need to get a group together to design a "city logo" and arrange for these materials to be manufactured.

At tonight's meeting we hope to divide the committee into groups that will take on areas to organize. Principally the artists, businesses, children's and food vendors. Rena Livengood is already working on the teen area and Brooke Moore from Sun City will handle the DJ area, security and insurance needs.

Rena has also asked Stacy Osborne, Assistant Branch Manager of the IL Founders Credit Union to act as our festival treasurer. Founders will assist us with the money handling.

Our "Executive Committee" will be Karen Paulson, Cindy Mace, Jane Alford, Brooke Moore, Jami Jamieson(Festival Secretary) and Richard Band or his representative. This group will make nitty gritty decisions as they arise and act as general facilitators for the event.

That's it for now! Send an email if you want to help. We are going to need dozens and dozens of people to help.

Plans for Fall Festival Underway

2006-06-04T04:32:00.000-07:00

Del Webb and The Lancaster News/Carolina Gateway have offered to sponsor a festival this fall to benefit the new library. The festival will be held on Sun City grounds.

Brooke Moore from Pulte Homes and Jane Alford from the newspaper met with Richard Band and Karen Paulson on Friday, June 2 to begin some preliminary planning.

We are considering dates right now and hope to have that settled by early next week. Tentatively we are looking at October 14. We want to be sure we don't conflict with festivals at the high school or in Van Wyck. We will post the date here and begin advertising as soon as it is settled. Moore suggested putting up a "teaser" sign about it at the library site. We'll need to check with the county before doing that.

This will be a big project and we will be asking the library group from the Indian Land Action Council to help with the legwork. Some ideas we tossed around were:

Sell booth space to vendors-either for a flat rate or a percentage of their sales
Raffles-big and small items...perhaps even a car
Donation stations-perhaps we could have some sort of competition between all the neighborhoods to see what neighborhood can get the most loose change donated
Activities for kids, such as magic acts, storytellers, inflatables, etc.
Is there such a thing as a portable skateboard park?
Car show
Silent auction
Evening open air concert for adults
Indian Land merchandise for sale. This might be a good time to introduce polos and tees, bumper stickers and other items that would identify Indian Land as a community

The festival will be the primary focus for the library group at the Action Council meeting on June 12. We will also ask that group to agree to meet more often than the regular once-a-month schedule.

Be sure to send an email to Karen Paulson if you are interested in assisting with this project.

Library Project Description

2006-05-26T09:15:00.000-07:00

Richard Band, our library director, has created the following summary of the Indian Land Library project. He forwarded this to Brooke Moore of Sun City so that she could post it on the resident's message board.

Feel free to link to this anytime you find yourself needing to explain our project to someone new.

DEL WEBB LIBRARY AT INDIAN LAND
PROJECT DESCRIPTION

The Lancaster County Library Board is planning the construction of a new library in 2007 to serve the Indian Land area of the county. This project would contribute funds to help the library meet our Capital Campaign target goal of $700,000.

Del Webb, the developer of the Sun City Carolina Lakes community, has pledged $1.5 million and donated a two-acre site for the library. These funds will be secured by revenue bonds issued by Lancaster County this year.

The total cost of the library project is estimated at $2.2 million. Construction costs will be about $1.5 million for the 12,000 square-foot facility. The building will be designed for future expansion, given the likelihood of rapid gains in the population of the panhandle. The funds to be raised will go toward books and materials, shelving, furnishings, technology, equipment and architectural fees. Contributions will be sought from developers, businesses, foundations and individuals. To facilitate the campaign, the Del Webb Library Steering Committee has been established.

The library site is in a highly desirable location, in the planned commercial section west of Jim Wilson Road, 17 miles north of downtown Lancaster. It will be visible and convenient to everyone traveling Highway 521 between Lancaster and Pineville. Neighboring tenants will include a grocery store, two banks, a medical center and restaurants. We look forward to the challenge of meeting the needs of a thriving service area that ranges from Waxhaw Creek north to the state line.

Citizens of Indian Land have had a long wait for their library. The demand continues to grow as the rural landscape undergoes dramatic changes. The Sun City and Edenmoor developments alone will add 6,000 housing units over the next eight years. Other housing projects along the U.S. 521 and S.C. 160 corridors, along with new industries and business parks, will create more pressure for services. A strong public library is one of the institutions the corporate sector looks for in assessing an area’s quality of life and living standards. The library will serve as a unifying presence ... a gathering place for lifelong residents and newcomers alike.

The Indian Land Library will offer a full range of circulating materials: books, periodicals, DVDs and audiotapes. Public access computers will be available for online research, school projects, word processing and computer literacy training. Also planned is a multi-purpose room for public meetings, classroom space and use by civic clubs. A conference room and several small study rooms will be included. We will offer pre-school story times and programming for children and adults. With a new high school and middle school for Indian Land on the drawing board, the library will provide an important educational resource for students and for adult lifelong learners.

The library will be administered as a satellite of the headquarters library in Lancaster. For the first year of operations, three full-time and three part-time staff members will be trained. Construction could begin as early as February, 2007, with opening day around December or January. The timetable depends on the success of fund-raising and other preparations. Materials for the collections, for example, must be selected, ordered and processed beginning eight to ten months prior to opening day. The cost of the starter book collection will be about $225,000.

We are extremely excited about our plans for this vitally needed facility: more than a library, it will truly be a community center for residents of all ages. The Indian Land Library will be a positive asset and source of pride to the whole county.

Richard Band, Director
313 S. White St.
Lancaster, SC 29720

803-285-1502
lanclib@infoave.net

Information on Running a Capital Campaign

2006-05-23T12:14:00.000-07:00

Here is a link to an article about how to start a capital campaign:

The Grantsmanship Center

Also, take a few minutes to look through the Friends of Libraries USA site. There is also a link to it on the right hand side.

Capital Campaign Steering Committee Meets

2006-05-23T05:07:00.000-07:00

On May 22 the first meeting of the Indian Land Library Steering Committee took place. It was held at 7 p.m. at Belair United Methodist Church on Shelley Mullis Road.

The agenda was loose as the new members spent time introducing themselves to each other and brainstormed a few ideas for raising funds for the library.

Richard Band, Lancaster County Library Director, got the members up-to-speed with site and building plans.

The library, tentatively called the Del Webb Library at Indian Land (a Lancaster County Library), currently has 2 acres of property set aside by Del Webb at Sun City. Del Webb has also pledged $1.5 million to be used for building.

At this time Lancaster County has not pledged any funds for the building or its contents. The anticipated need is about $700,000 to $800,000 for fixtures and materials.

The committee scheduled the next meeting for June 19. Before the next meeting:

Chris McGinn will begin drafting some sort of logo and graphics for printed materials for our campaign.
Richard Band will contact a librarian at Spartanburg that has had experience in fundraising. We are hoping that person can come give us some fundraising tips.
Richard, Karen Paulson, and Linda McCorkle will meet with architect Danny Shelley in the next couple of weeks to see if we can get ideas for how to draft a list of tangible items for people to sponsor ("your $$ donation will buy this particular item or room).
Richard and Karen will also try to meet with The Lancaster News about a fall festival they are proposing to put on for the library in conjunction with Del Webb.
Setting up this blog to promote communication was on the list of items to accomplish.
Karen will charge the Indian Land Action Council and its library interest group with working on a community-wide fundraising effort of their own...either in conjunction with the fall festival or something separate.

We hope the next meeting agenda will include a visit from the Spartanburg librarian and a preview of Chris' ideas for brochures. We hope to be able to set some sort of tiered approach to the fundraising, so that we can figure out where to start going for money ... big and small.