Work Continues on Future Library Home

With an eye toward an opening around the start of the coming school year, Helen Matthes Library officials and crews from Poettker Construction are working to ready the former 5th/3rd Bank building as a new library home.

Local media were invited on a tour of the new facility Tuesday morning. The structure is starting to take shape, including meeting rooms in the basement and potential lease space to another entity. The main floor will include a reading room, circulation desk, offices and computer areas, along with the books for adult readers.

The upper floor will house areas for youth and children as well as additional areas for adults.

In conjunction with the tour, Library Director Amanda McKay announced that the library fundraising committee has raised $1.5 million, which is 75% of the $2 million fundraising goal. The funds raised will be combined with $500,000 from previous fundraising campaigns, $700,000 anticipated from the sale of the current library on Market Avene, and $300,000 to be sought from federal, state and private grants to cover the total $3.5 million cost of the renovation.

If you'd like to contribute toward the project cost, contact McKay at the library at 342-2464, extension 5, or email her at amanda@effinghamlibrary.org.