The site cleared for the new Eugene public library received some color Tuesday morning as part of an event kicking off the library’s final fund-raising push.
Before an audience of about 40 children and more than 50 adults, Mayor Jim Torrey and library officials unveiled several murals, painted by school children, that will hang on the chain-link fence surrounding the excavated site on Charnelton Street and 10th Avenue.
Library fund-raising coordinator Barbara Dellenback said the brightly-colored murals are intended to add color to the otherwise bleak construction site until the library’s slated grand opening in early 2002.
“Chain-link fences can get pretty boring,” she said.
Library officials said they hope the murals will also keep the project in the forefront of people’s minds and encourage grassroots contributions to augment the library’s budget, the bulk of which includes $20 million in urban renewal funds and dedicated tax dollars.
Thus far, $3.5 million has been collected, and library officials hope to raise another $1 million before construction begins in the fall.
“We’re asking everyone to give whatever you can,” Dellenback said.
To entice further tax-deductible donations, the library will place the names of contributors on plaques inside the new library. Depending on the amount of contributions, the plaques will be placed on bookshelves, bookstacks, chairs, tables, benches and stair steps. The library will also sell coffee mugs ranging from $10-15.
“We’re building for generations,” library fund-raising coordinator Molly Stafford said. “Buy a shelf. Buy a bench. Buy a mug.”
The new 90,000-square-foot library will replace the current, cramped 37,000-square-foot library, built in 1959, on 13th Avenue between Charnelton and Olive Streets.
“With the focus of involving the community in fund raising, we can truly make this library great,” Stafford said. “Our new library will be an emblem of community pride.”
At Tuesday’s event, with television cameras rolling, flash photos snapping and more than 90 people listening, McCornack Elementary School fifth-grader Nichole Barnett described her school’s mural.
“A couple of boys drew dragons and iguanas because, well, you know boys,” Barnett said. “A lot of girls drew ladybugs.”
Barnett said she drew pictures of hands and eyes “because that’s all you need to read.” She pointed out that the hands were painted different colors to indicate that the library will be open to people of all ethnic backgrounds.
The bright murals, extolling imagination and reading, included a series depicting the new library as a universe of knowledge containing planets of fiction, nonfiction, history and biography.
As part of his committment to increasing literacy among youths, Torrey thanked the children for the murals and encouraged them to read.
“If you can’t read, you can’t succeed,” he said.