By SUSAN WALSH
The Rotary Club of Merced recently donated $5,000 to help support the new Mary Hoffman Teen Center at the County Library in Merced. They are latest contributor in an effort to improve resources for local young people.
On May 19, 2021, in consultation with County Librarian Amy Taylor, the organization Friends of the Merced County Library set a worthy, long-term goal: to build a new teen center on the top floor of Merced Library.
The Friends’ Board of Directors allocated $25,000 of their reserves as baseline funding for the project.
The teen center will be named for the late Mary Hofmann, a former middle-school library teacher, an active Friend, and an ardent supporter of the Merced County Library throughout her life.
In addition to being a welcoming space for local youth, the new center will be designed to serve teens countywide through the development of portable programming that young people can enjoy in all 11 library branches.
Merced County librarians, working with a committee of local teens, will develop the final design and guide the construction on the third floor of Merced Library (above the Children’s Room) in the coming year. The new teen books and bookcases will also be purchased and put into circulation in 2022-2023. They will be housed outside the construction zone until they can be relocated into the teen center, and they will be available for check-out to all.
The Friends continue to seek additional grants for the center and to fundraise to meet their goal of $45,000 for the center’s furnishings and equipment, most of which will be needed as the construction draws to a close, hopefully by the fall of 2023.
Project donors include many individuals and the following organizations: the American Association of University Women, Merced Branch (AAUW); Friends of the Livingston Branch Library; the League of Women Voters of Merced County (LWV); the Merced Golden Lions; and the Merced/Mariposa Division of the California Retired Teachers Association (CalRTA).
By mid-May 2022, the FOMCL had raised $35,000, but even more exciting has been the response from local governments.
The leaders of both Merced County and the City of Merced wanted to impact the future with their pandemic recovery funds from the federal government (American Rescue Plan Act or ARPA), and they chose to do so, in part, by supporting the Mary Hofmann Teen Center.
The Merced County Supervisors assigned $100,000 of their ARPA funds for the next fiscal year to center construction, largely thanks to public advocacy for the new center from the FOMCL, the AAUW, the LWV, the CalRTA, and hundreds of Merced County teens, teachers, and citizens.
The City of Merced invited non-profit organizations to apply for their ARPA funding through a grant program. The Friends were pleased when the Merced City Council rated the FOMCL proposal at the top of their list and awarded the Friends $25,000 for new books and bookcases for the teen center.
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Merced Rotary honors the late David Nannini
Merced Rotary honors the late David NanniniMerced Rotarian Kent Floro presented Susan Nannini and her son Darren Nannini with the Paul Harris Fellow recognition in memory of the late David Nannini during a recent club meeting at the Elk’s Lodge.
The Paul Harris Fellow recognition acknowledges individuals who contribute, or who have contributions made in their name, of $1,000 to The Rotary Foundation.
Rotary established the recognition in 1957 to encourage and show appreciation for substantial contributions to what was then the Foundation’s only program, Rotary Foundation Fellowships for Advanced Study, the precursor to Ambassadorial Scholarships.
David Nannini was a longtime Rotary member who led efforts to improve youth sports in Merced, including the creation of the baseball fields at the Youth Sports Complex in south Merced, the organization of Little League games, and the foundation of the annual Nannini Baseball Game that raised money for local student/athlete scholarships.