By Dan Spalding
News Now Warsaw
WARSAW — Warsaw Friends of the Library has seen a significant surge in support over the past six weeks after Warsaw City Council rejected a $17 million bond.
The vote means the library won’t be able to seek another bond for at least two years, and officials say they have no way to cover the cost of big-ticket repairs, which they say are inevitable.
Soon after the council vote, Friends of the Library announced plans to raise the $17 million — a gargantuan goal that seems beyond their means.
The group typically raises about $10,000 a year, but in the past six weeks, since the vote, they’ve collected roughly $5,000.
Bree Robinson, who heads up the Friends of the Library bookstore and is on the FOTL board, said she realizes the goal might be out of reach, but that something had to be done.
She said the vote has motivated FOTL and the library’s supporters.
FOTL has a little more than a dozen volunteers.
“It definitely kind of gave us a new perspective on how important our fundraising actually is. We work hard all year to raise as much money as we can, but now it feels more critical,” Robinson said.
“It feels more important to do everything we can above and beyond what we already were,” she added.
She said the reaction to the vote began within hours.
“The day after the vote, we started getting donations. Like, my PayPal just started blowing up, and I was just like, okay,” she said.
“The people in this community do care, and they realized that there’s a need, and they were willing to chip in what they could immediately, and it’s continued. We continue to get donations almost daily,” she said.
Robinson made the comments while overseeing a “books and cookies” sale held in the parking lot Saturday morning.
Almost all of the books sold on Saturday were sold in exchange for donations rather than at specific prices for each book.
She said such events typically generate about $1,500.
Many of the opponents of the bond vote who spoke at the May 18 vote said they appreciate the library and its role in the community, but repeatedly urged the library to rely more on fundraising rather than raise property taxes.
FOTL provides money for small projects, such as when the water fountain recently needed repairs, she said.
“But, you know, we don’t have $900,000 for the chiller system,” she said.
“The reality is it’s very difficult, if not impossible, to raise that amount of money … it’s very wishful thinking that this could just be a pass-the-hat around the community thing. I wish that it were, but the reality is it just isn’t really feasible,” she said.
The library board has also established a fund through the Kosciusko County Community Foundation.
You can learn more about both at warsawlibrary.org.
