Grampie and grandson reading _How Everything Works_ at the new Book Room on Main Street in Templeton

We’d love to show you around our little Book Room and make plans for a much bigger library!

Decorated for the holidays

Art contest first grade winner Nicky Frangie

At our October 28 event, everyone seemed to have a great time, they loved the decor and, really loved the food. THANKS!!

On a Friday evening in late October, TCL supporters and first friends of the library turned out to the Templeton American Legion Hall for a benefit dinner to raise money for the Building Fund, recognize donors and contributors, and focus on the specific needs to Raise The Roof!

TCLA board member and event organizer Melinda Reed said, “I continue to be amazed at the different commitment levels from individuals and businesses. This small community is giving and generous. The theme and feel of the event was right for the times and the community.”

Melinda reports: “Numbers are in and it looks like we made over $8300 for the library with ‘Let’s Raise the Roof!’ Thanks again to our great dinner sponsors, silent auction donors and always the community that attended and purchased items! We dig Templeton!”

Stay tuned for more details:

•  essay winners

•  sustaining our fundraising momentum

[reposted from Central Station blog]

Those of you who don’t keep up with Edinburgh’s literary world through Twitter may have missed the recent spate of mysterious paper sculptures appearing around the city.

Guardian article, 3rd March 2011

One day in March, staff at the Scottish Poetry Library came across a wonderful creation, left anonymously on a table in the library. Carved from paper, mounted on a book and with a tag addressed to @byleaveswelive – the library’s Twitter account – reading:

It started with your name @byleaveswelive and became a tree.… … We know that a library is so much more than a building full of books… a book is so much more than pages full of words.… This is for you in support of libraries, books, words, ideas….. a gesture (poetic maybe?)

Read more…

Josh Gibson

Josh Gibson, the original Boy Scout with a dream for a library, graciously spoke at the benefit dinner event. His continuing efforts to make his Eagle Scout dream a reality serve as a model for a supporter who helps get things done. He proudly wore a hardhat during his presentation on the night of our Going Local: Raise the Roof event to demonstrate our community readiness to begin building the library once we secure the building funds. To help the library toward our Phase I goal of $672,067, Josh and his family donated $2500 to the library fund.

Thanks to the Gibsons, all the guests at the Going Local, Raising the Roof event, and everyone who helped make it happen. We feel this event was a success and look forward to keeping up the fundraising momentum.

Carla Willhoit with books waiting for their library

by Tonya Strickland for The Tribune

Carla Willhoit’s enthusiasm to bring a library to the small community of Templeton is immeasurable, but the sight of boxed books stacked high in her garage paint a picture of her commitment. The 89-year-old resident is a founding member of the Templeton Community Library Association and a longtime advocate of the benefits libraries bring to communities.

Before Templeton’s last library, housed in its volunteer fire department, closed in the 1970s, she remembers one man who spent hours reading and talking to those who came and went. “I can still picture him,” Willhoit said. “He’d spend all day reading, and it was a social thing, a place to gather.”

She and about 15 other volunteers have met at least monthly over the past 11 years to re-create such a place. It would have the traditional benefits of a community hub, but also has modern-day advantages. “We’re not talking about old buildings with tall dusty stacks,” association board member Melinda Reed said. “We’re talking about an airy space with e-books and Internet — a technology center — as well as a place for (books) and poetry.”

Read the rest of this article

The goal of this proposal is to raise funds to build a community library in Templeton. To do this, the Templeton Community Library Association (TCLA) must secure $670,000 for Phase I and have building underway by April 2012. The TCLA received a minor use building permit from the County of San Luis Obispo that will expire unless construction progress is underway at the designated site by the spring 2012 deadline. Templeton residents need a library that draws together a range of community members into a shared learning and imagination space.

Although a building permit has been granted for a new library, time is running out to secure funding to construct the building. Every step has been carefully addressed and planned by the TCLA and coordinating agencies: now the project can finally secure the construction funding. If the minor use permit for the project expires without progress underway on the construction of the building, this would present a significant setback to the grassroots effort and would essentially reset the entire project.

The Need for a Library in Templeton

Students of all ages, parents, teachers, seniors, job seekers, new readers and English learners in Templeton need a 21st century library with adequate learning spaces for expanding minds and horizons. In the past, the County Free Library provided library resources and a reading room on Templeton’s Main Street. However, since closing in 1977, Templeton’s only library option between Paso Robles and Atascadero has been a Black Gold Library System bookmobile visiting one time per week. While the bookmobile definitely fills a need today in the Templeton community, its small size does not encourage lingering to read and explore other books on the shelf. Furthermore, a bookmobile cannot provide the computers that serve as the beating heart of today’s California libraries. Only through free shared use of library computers can seniors and lower income residents access online education products and other tools for success. Free access to education via library computers can help encourage curiosity and academic achievement in Templeton’s citizens of all ages which ultimately contributes to a healthy, productive community.

More info: Why Templeton needs a library

At the moment, Templeton gets the bookmobile one day a week

Templeton is a quickly growing community. In 1977, Templeton had one rural route for postal delivery while today it has eight rural routes. In 1988, this unincorporated area hosted just 800 residents while today it has more than 7000, a growth of 875% over 23 years. Signs on Highway 101 that still list Templeton’s population at 2,900 illustrate the rapid pace of Templeton’s growth: today, more than 2000 children participate in the Templeton Unified School District (TUSD). Despite this community’s growth, Paso Robles plans to eliminate some public transportation routes to Templeton, further complicating transportation for those citizens wishing to access library resources via public transit.

We love the bookmobile but it is crowded and has no public computers

A local library with safe access will address a number of issues in the Templeton community. Both youth and adults can experience a 21st century library experience locally rather than arranging transportation to libraries in neighboring towns or foregoing the library altogether. Children will have a safe study space after school as well as a location for summer reading programs to encourage learning. With a library, this growing community can access library resources for English learners, job opportunities and training, and community synergy in a way the bookmobile cannot. Low-income residents will have increased access to technology, especially children who must review homework and grades online or risk falling behind in class. Of the students enrolled in the TUSD, 16.2% live in families with incomes that fall below the poverty level. Among adults, the poverty rate in Templeton is 32%. A comfortable quieter space for adults and seniors is situated on the other side of the library from the children’s section. Seniors may benefit from contact with younger people as well as the variety of hard copy and electronic resources in the library to keep them stimulated and intellectually active.

Collaboration and Community

The Templeton Community Library already enjoys many successful collaborations. The TCLA plans to join the Black Gold Cooperative Library System. The TCLA members continue to meet with the presidents of the various “Friends of the Library” chapters in SLO County to brainstorm fundraising ideas. They also meet with architect Robert McCormick and a host of engineering firms, surveyors, and scientists who have collaborated well over the first dozen years of this project. Community businesses will be encouraged to support their neighbors and customers in this endeavor.

Libraries gather residents of all ages in a stimulating space to better themselves and the community as a whole. Without spaces to learn, reflect, and congregate, a town can fracture into small cliques or groups at the post office, gas station, or restaurants. While these places may be useful for casual interaction, they are not spaces that facilitate genuine learning and experience in the way public spaces such as a library or town square help citizens make connections across boundaries. The future Templeton Library is expected to be a gathering place for the community. Without a public library building for 34 years, Templeton’s capstone building will complete the system: theirs is the only community in the whole of San Luis Obispo County without a library. By developing the library with the most current technology, the Templeton Community Library can serve as a model for using the latest digital and hard copy information and technology for a changing Central Coast community.

The Time is Now to Raise the Library

We must secure funding for the building’s construction or face the possibility of new permit applications. The architectural design will also need to evolve expensively through the two sets of code changes that have been instituted since the first permitting request. TCLA has pledges from before the economic crisis and will re-contact and re-new those in-kind offers now that construction is on the horizon. As of May 2011, the donated professional services for this project amount to some $181,200. The proceeds from many book sales, auctions, BBQs and other fundraising efforts over the years add to several larger personal contributions for a current total of $239.240. Many new local businesses are now stakeholders in the library because they would enjoy indirect benefit from the development of such a public facility in this prominent point in town at the southeast corner of Vineyard and Main. Our community is committed to building this long-hoped-for library.

Let's build!

Getting a building through all the proper approvals and permits is not a simple task, especially given the Templeton Community Library’s particular location along the river.

1999: Eagle Scout project initiates idea of re-establishing a library in Templeton

1999: Templeton Community Library Association founded

2001: Architect Robert McCormick begins to design the building and oversee the permitting process

2001-2003: Architect McCormick worked in collaboration with Melody Mullis, library consultant and assistant librarian to the library director of SLOCLD, who supplied the library programming design requirements.

2003: Zoning change completed; applied for Minor Use Permit

2004: Archeological surveys initiated

2007: Minor Use Permit approved (extended 2009, 2010)

2009: Building Permit approved

• Templeton Community Library County Permit Process

2011: Minor Use Permit extended for the third and final extension

**Library building permit expires if Minor Use Permit not extended**

2012: Minor Use Permit will expire if construction not underway by April 2012

2013: Planned date for library completion (estimated 6-10 months for construction)

More info: The lengthy process to follow all the rules to start construction on the library

Every donor has helped us get to this point and sustained the passion for this project from those who gave their time and expertise to those who made financial contributions large and small. Everyone wants to make the Templeton Community Library a reality, including local schools, business leaders, San Luis Obispo County government supporters, and community residents.

Handmade desserts for the "Over the Rainbow" TCLA fashion show fundraiser

Every donor has helped us get to this point and sustained the passion for this project from those who gave their time and expertise to those who made financial contributions large and small. Everyone wants to make the Templeton Community Library a reality, including local schools, business leaders, San Luis Obispo County government supporters, and community residents.

Fundraising History for the Templeton Community Library

• TCLA Fundraiser: Going Local ~ Raise the Roof! Benefit Dinner October 2011
• TCLA Fundraiser Fashion Show: “Follow the Yellow Brick Road” June 2011
  
• 1999-2011 Donors

Do you know someone who might be interested in donating funds, materials or expertise to this project?

TCLA 2012 Float entry won Best Float

Librarian Janice Harington likes to put herself in the middle of the action from baking all the desserts for our Fashion Shows to serving as queen librarian on the Templeton Community Library Association (TCLA) July 4th parade float.  Janice has volunteered as a TCLA board member in recent years and really puts her heart into it because she knows first-hand how important the Templeton Community Library is for the youth and adults she works with every day as head librarian for the Templeton Middle School.

Janice is a model volunteer but there are many ways to help raise our library, especially if your time is tight but your interest is high. Do you want to volunteer in some capacity? Sign up using the form below. Thanks!

The Templeton Community Library project needs:

• construction expertise [see below]
• networking experts who can connect TCLA to generous neighbors in the community
• business outreach coordinators

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Construction Planning

The Ad Hoc Building committee is currently updating a list of local volunteers and businesses that offered labor and in-kind support over the past ten years. Project manager and local contractor Nick Pokrajac will review contractor licenses and coordinate the project’s needs with volunteer skills. We will schedule a meeting for all volunteers to review plans and meet Nick.

Become a Facebook fan of the Templeton Community Library Association (TCLA).

Sign up to help this project across the finish line. In the form below, supply your name and the best phone number and/or email address to reach you.