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Building tor Knowledge
The fundraising campaign
I
t was a warm night in June when tennis players in
Westmount Park left their game to join a party in
the lane where Brian Puddington was warbling for a
worthy cause: "Do I hear fifty-one dollars? Going,
going, gone!"
He had just auctioned off Roch Carrier's book
The Sweater.
Donated and signed, it was author's
way of helping his block on Lansdowne Avenue,
south of Sherbrooke, raise funds for the Library
Renewal Project. A photograph of Nepal taken by
world traveller Richard Locke brought in $42 while
a tennis lesson from Robert Lefrancois was snapped
up for $32. Another resident donated his football
helmet from college. Mayor Peter Trent and Karin
Marks teamed up to sing from their repertoire of
folk music and rock'n'roll bringing in the princely
sums of $14 and $12.
"We had such a good time," Councillor Marks
says. "The kids organized games and a couple of
them made a pinata filled with candies which they
hung in a tree in the park for other children to
smash. People brought food and we had all kinds of
things donated for the auction."
Organized by Dr. Henry Olders, the event
gleaned $1,100 for the fundraising campaign. It was
one of 53 "community awareness" events held to
Among those participating in the chair challenge for the
Lansdowne lane were, from left: Victoria Pelletier, Elisabeth
and Rebecca Evans-Olders, Rebecca Chant, Claire and Sarah
Carsley, Jennifer Chant and Vicki Braide.
bring attention to the library and earn the various
streets, or in some cases a group or school, its name
on one of the new library chairs.
Ten members of the Contactivity seniors' centre
donated $180 they raised in a Read-a-thon. Says
programme co-ordinator Sandra Valdmanis: "One of
the ladies, Betty Schwarzmann, had written a book
called
Manoirs of a Social Worker,
and some of her
friends read her book. That was kind of fun."
On Murray Hill, Yvonne Mass invited residents
of that street as well as those on Grenville, Renfrew
and Douglas to a get-together and a book exchange.
About 50 attended, everyone bringing a book and
taking away another. No money was exchanged,
"but as people left I gave them a pledge card so they
could give at their own discretion," she says. And
the occasion shaped her own summer. She discov-
ered author Beverley Nichols. "I've absolutely gone
crazy over his books: commentaries on British social
life in the 1920s and '30s. He was quite a man
about town. It started me on a whole research
project to find his works."
"I think the fundraising has been the most
exciting part of the library project," Councillor
Marks says. It's rallied the community and brought
people together in a common interest.
With a theme of
Buildingfor Knowledge,
the
drive for $1.5 million had been quietly underway for
some time when it was launched publicly November
21, 1994, with the news that $827,651 had already
been raised through foundation and family gifts.
The community phase began April 19, 1995, at
Ecole St. Léon with a
Treeof Knowledge
program
organized by Hélène Quintal and Colette Benoît.
By the end of September 1995, the target was
within sight. The campaign had reached more than
$1.3 million and was expected to bring in the
remainder by the time the library opened.
Success was attributed largely to the credibility
and leadership brought to the campaign by its
chairman David A. Culver, retired chairman and
chief executive officer of Alcan and a longtime
Westmount resident. For Mr. Culver, the project had
two important aspects which whetted his enthusi-
asm: he viewed it as a pathfinder for the way public
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