How to Plan a Groundbreaking Ceremony for the Library

Sybil Stern Mervis

When we successfully completed our $1.5 million campaign, "Bring the Dream Alive in '95," to help finance and build a new Danville Public Library, we looked forward with great expectation to the day we would break ground for the building.

We considered our successes: The Danville City Council, with the mayor's leadership, had approved $2.5 million in bonds to help with construction plus additional funds to purchase land adjacent to the building site. Our capital fund drive, run entirely by volunteers, had raised $1.5 million!

When the campaign goal was reached just before Memorial Day, an announcement was made to friends and supporters on the steps of our 90-year-old Carnegie building. Everyone was jubilant that our community of 34,000, hindered by double digit unemployment for most of the past 13 years, had been able to raise over a million and a half dollars in less than four months, with 315 volunteer solicitors.

We consulted with our contractors, as soon as it was apparent who the successful bidders were, to determine when they would begin construction. We wanted to break ground as close as possible to the time they would actually begin moving earth.

We started our planning for the groundbreaking by asking our volunteer campaign chairman and businesswoman Nancy Mettam, "What would you like to see in the library groundbreaking?" She felt it was important that the groundbreaking be unique, all-inclusive and egalitarian. Donations had been made by people from all walks of life, all ages, and all economic levels—school children, elderly homebound, businesses and foundations—truly a cross-section of our community. Nancy felt that each of the more than 1,400 donors to the "Bring the Dream Alive in '95" campaign should be encouraged to help "break the ground." Having served six years on City Council, she did not want to see only "bigwigs" wielding the spades.

We made a request of the reference librarian for a book or guide on How to Break Ground for Your Exciting New Library! And, difficult as it is to believe, she came up empty-handed. She could not find one such book or guide. When she put out a request for assistance on the Internet, she received one suggestions from a New York librarian. By this time we were desperate. How could be give our new library an auspicious and deserving beginning?

When we received word that we had been awarded a grant of $250,000 in state Library Construction funds from Secretary of State/State Librarian George Ryan's innovative "Live and Learn" program, reality set in. There really would be a groundbreaking ... and SOON.

Our small campaign steering committee, comprised of the library director, president of the Board of Trustees, campaign chairman and two hardworking community volunteers and the Friends of the Library quickly called together a few interested friends and Library staff to set some goals and assign responsibilities.

As we moved ahead, we established the following guidelines that worked for us.

• Begin planning for your groundbreaking at least three months before the event is scheduled. Consult with the contractors before setting the date. Reschedule if the contractors' starting date changes. Be adaptable, leave "setting it in stone" to the contractors!

• Select devoted, talented people to handle the various jobs required to break ground. Designate persons to handle publicity, physical set-up, stage decor, invitations, program, commemoratives, etc. Meet at least every two weeks to report on progress and identify any problems the group needs to work out.

• Publicity is very important. Nobody wants to hold a groundbreaking ceremony unless there's somebody there to DIG. We were able to capitalize

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on the uniqueness of ours by encouraging everyone to participate.

We notified all the media and told them in advance what would happen that day. We asked businesses with large signboards to post an invitation to attend. Because the community was so proud of what had been accomplished—our "cause" was a popular one— everyone was happy to cooperate.

We asked a local artist to create a pen and ink sketch of the proposed library from the architect's model. She willingly accepted, and we used her drawing on the 5" x 8" invitation card. In addition, we ordered 1,000 postcards with her drawing of the new building to give or sell as mementos of the special day.

• Choose a chief of staff. Because she was "on-site" every day, our library director Barbara J. Nolan became the arrangements chairman. She, her staff and the committee members surveyed the best spot on the building site at various times of the day to see where the sunshine fell and whether the ground was level. She checked accessibility as well. She contacted the city parks department and arranged for them to move the city's portable bandstand and park benches onto the site early in the day. We wanted the program to be on a "stage" high enough for all observers to enjoy. After checking the availability of electricity (on the light post outside), a local radio station loaned us a sound system so that everyone could hear the speakers despite the noises of nearby traffic. Naturally, we needed a podium for our speakers.

• Don't forget posterity! Ask a local studio to videotape, for historical reasons, the event for the Archives. Our finished video was available for purchase by our "devotees" and is available to borrow. A local photographer took still photos of the event.

• Select a time of day that's most convenient for the greatest number of people. We chose 5 p.m., hoping that citizens would stop by after work.

• Make the site attractive and inviting. The decorations chairman's job was to "cheer up" the site, which had recently been cleared of old buildings. She had two large banners donated, which read "Bringing the Dream Alive," to hang across the bandstand (and to use later in the library). She borrowed large plants from the horticulture department of the local community college. Because the color scheme for our "Bring the Dream Alive in '95" campaign was red, white and black, we found a local welding supplier willing to donate red, white and black balloons, a canister of helium and a nozzle, so that student volunteers could fill the balloons and tie them in large bunches on the afternoon of the event. We put huge nets around the large bunches of balloons so that we could cut them loose at the moment the first shovel touched the ground. The effect was exciting ... all those red, white and black balloons floating skyward.

• Invite everyone in as many ways as possible. Our invitations chairman had many volunteers who addressed the 200 invitations to our library boards (Board of Trustees, Foundation and Friends), contractors' representatives, major donors, library staff, city officials. State Librarian and State Library officials, Lincoln Trail officials, etc. We mailed the invitations with beautiful special issue library stamps commemorating children's books. Be sure to check in advance for the amount of postage needed if your invitations are larger than letter size.

In addition, flyers that resembled the invitations were placed on both circulation desks, posted on all library doors, and every place else we could think of, inviting everyone to come to the ground breaking.

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• Know who's responsible for what. As we accomplished all this, we invited library staff members to add their ideas. The library director was a member of the steering committee, so she always knew what was happening. Because many volunteers were participating in the set up, she prepared a schedule of delivery times and persons responsible for handling the deliveries. Key staffers and the custodian received copies of the schedule. When the big day arrived, everything happened on schedule. Even the fire in a ballast on the bandshell occurred early enough not to interfere with the ceremony.

• Plan on a few commemoratives well in advance of the big day. When you plan an event like this, you must have a sense of history. We felt that commemorative items were very important for this once-in-a-lifetime event, so we contacted novelty salespeople and perused catalogs. It is important to allow sufficient time for delivery. Few people will purchase them after the event.

Ultimately, we narrowed our choice to a bright red ribbon saying "Digging for Knowledge Danville Public Library Groundbreaking July 28, 1994." We needed something significant to use as a pin, so we selected a tiny gold spade that punched through the top of the ribbon and attached to clothing. The ribbons were silkscreened locally and 200 pins were ordered. Two Friends of the Library underwrote the cost of the pins, and we gave them to board members and major donors and sold the remaining ones for $2.00 each, which nearly covered the cost. (See photo)

• Prepare a program outlining the event. A member of our steering committee, skilled in desktop publishing, designed a program which was given to attendees. It listed the names of the three library boards, the major players in the city who had helped bring this project to fruition, the contractors, ground breaking ceremony committee and underwriters, and special donors who needed to be thanked. It included a brief history of the library, the artist's sketch of the new building and a special thanks to the State Librarian. The program included a verse of "America the Beautiful" so that people could sing together.

• Keep the program short and focus on the most important event of the groundbreaking, the symbolic act. We felt that it was important to show our gratitude to the townspeople and to our nation, so patriotism was an important part of the program. We invited a Boy Scout troop to present the colors and a local soprano to lead us in singing a patriotic song. Opening remarks were made by the President of the Board of Trustees, who had been very involved in the campaign. The City Council was represented by the Mayor, who had been instrumental in our unique city/private citizen agreement to fund the building. Our capital fund drive chairman acknowledged and thanked the nearly 400 volunteers who had worked on the campaign.

After the crowd sang one verse of "America the Beautiful" together, a Library Trustee read a letter from the State Librarian who sent his congratulations along with a representative from the State Library. We introduced members of boards and the contractors and then moved to the site of the new building, a few feet from the stage. The library staff had outlined the "footprint" of the new building with yellow caution tape, leaving an opening at the side closest to the stage.

Delineating the footprint of the new structure helped give a sense of the space it would occupy, especially since much needed space was one of the main reasons for building a new facility. Various library department locations were identified with large signs so the groundbreakers could select their favorite department for their "dig."

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A space 30 feet into the site was chosen for the initial groundbreaking. The ceremonial spade was donated by a locally-owned hardware store. We decided not to have it engraved for posterity before the groundbreaking, as we learned that digging might scratch the blade.

As the sound manager played "Celebration" over the loudspeakers, the Mayor, Board President and Library Director dug in. After the first shovelful, the soloist signalled everyone else to dig. And dig they did!

The nearly 300 persons who attended the ground-breaking on that late mid-summer afternoon had been invited to bring shovels or spades. Adults delighted in digging around the yellow tape outline of the foundation. Staff members took their shovels to the spots where signs indicated their department's location. One staff member took her grandsons to the area of the children's department and photographed them as they dug with their child-size coal mining tools their great grandfather had played with as a boy.

Children wielding sandbox shovels, old tin spoons, coal shovels, or whatever else they had brought along, dug. Twenty minutes later, participants were still digging. One frustrated child was heard to comment, "I'm not making much of a dent!"

It was definitely a "Kodak moment." We had moved the campaign "thermometer" bookstack sign to the dig site, giving the media and amateur photographers a good visual background. The event was a joy to all present!

There you have it, a plan for a wonderful groundbreaking. We accomplished exactly what we had set out to do—involve the entire community in an historical moment for our city. We wanted a sense of history, a sense of patriotism, a sense of accomplishment and of participation. We all felt that we had achieved it.

*Sybil Stem Mervis, President, Board of Trustees, Danville Public Library.

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