Our current funds for the building project are (numbers are rounded up):

Checking:           $  2,700
2 CDs totaling:  $15,300
Total:                  $18,000

Our next "benchmark" for the project is $20,000 to pay for technical drawings for the building. We currently have a grant proposal submitted to a local foundation for this amount.

Our progress so far includes purchase and donation of land (located at 223 W Grand, next to the bank parking lot), plus demolition of the house previously on the property, as well as an artist's concept drawing and proposed floorplan. You can read more details here.

Claire Doss Simmons, in her Last Will and Testament, left a bequest in the amount of $10,000 to the Whitewright Public Library, in the memory of the Doss Simmons Family.

Mrs. Simmons died June 6, 2005, at the age of 83, and at the time of her death, had no immediate family. Her estate also left bequests for the Whitewright Ambulance Service, the Whitewright Masonic Lodge, the First United Methodist Church and the Oak Hill Cemetary Association.

The donation to the library has been placed in the New Building Fund, and is half of the money required to pay the architect for technical drawings needed to begin the next phase of the project.

You can see the proposed floorplan for the new building here. It is a .pdf file and requires Adobe Acrobat Reader to view (free).

The design is by Jim Wilson Architects of McKinney. The library owns the land for the new location, but now must begin fundraising for the project. You can help by purchasing a brick or making other donations. Also keep this project in mind if you work for a company that does any type of charitable donations.

At the regular library board meeting on January 18th, the board passed a motion to hire Jim Wilson Architects of McKinney to create the necessary conceptual drawings we need to proceed with grant writing. This is not the full project, but merely a starting point so we can begin seeking funding. We have already received a prelminary building program that establishes the desired building size, and they are working on the conceptual site design and floor plan.

You can visit Jim Wilson Architects' site to see some of their other projects, which include the Central Fire Station in McKinney, Independent Bank in Van Alstyne and McKinney, as well as the First National Bank of Trenton's branch in Melissa.

Some visible progress has been made by knocking down the old house on the property where the new library will be located.

( Click here for pictures )

There's still a lot of work ahead: deciding on a contractor, grant writing, fund raising, etc., but we're on the road to a new library building!