Centennial Project

In 2002, Rotary International’s Centennial Planning Committee called upon all Rotary clubs to plan a new community service project that would commemorate Rotary’s Centennial, February 23, 2005. To qualify as a Rotary Club Centennial Community Project, each undertaking was required to meet the following criteria:

• Fulfill a clearly identifiable community need
• Provide a solution that has measurable results
• Invollve the active participation of Rotarians (as opposed to simply providing funding to another organization)
• Create a permanent sign, plaque, or inscription at the project site that identifies both the sponsoring Rotary club and Rotary’s centennial year

Members of both Oswego Rotary clubs were surveyed for ideas of appropriate centennial projects. Out of that effort, Charles Young of the Oswego Sunrise Rotary Club and William Reilly of the Oswego Rotary Club, submitted a proposal that was adopted by the two clubs which agreed to complete the project and share the cost equally.

The historic Oswego School District Public Library, the Gerritt Smith Building, located on East Second Street, was about to be restored and enlarged with an addition. Plans called for a community meeting room since, in the downtown area, there was no room that could hold about 100 people and be flexible enough to accommodate various meetings and events. The room is on the lower level of the library and has its own entrance and exit to outdoors so it can be used without providing access to the entire building when the library is closed.

The Rotary clubs committed to furnishing the community room with chairs, tables, projection equipment and the like.

The plan was to have the library completed in time to meet Rotary’s centennial. However, for many reasons related to funding and the historic nature of the building, the renovation moved more slowly than expected, and it is presently expected that the community room furnishings will be able to be installed in May 2008. In late winter 2008, a committee of Rotarians from both clubs held several meetings to select the equipment and furniture to be ordered for the room. The committee consisted of Oswego Sunrise Rotary Club members Cindy Tascarella and Charles Young, chairman; Oswego Rotary Club members Robert Wood and Vernon Tryon; and Mary Shanley, Library Board of Directors.

The Community Room is 35 feet long from east to west and 25 feet wide and should accommodate 80 to 100 people, depending upon the type of set-up.

This is the view of the Community Room looking toward the east. The light area in the right corner is an exit providing handicapped access to outdoors. The recessed area at the back is the kitchenette. It has a counter with sink in the left end (not visible in photo) and will have a base cabinet with countertop along the back wall and a refrigerator in the right corner. Just outside the kitchenette in the left corner of the Community Room wil be a bottled water dispenser which will provide both hot and cold water.

This view of the kitchenette shows the base cabinet where the sink will be installed.

This is the view looking toward the west. In the left corner is a window which looks out across East First Street toward the Oswego River. The wall straight ahead will generally be set up as the front of the room with a lectern and conference table. The wall will serve as the projection screen. There are windows high in the left wall and the double entrance doors to the room are out of view on the right wall. The elevator is nearby outside the room to provide access to other floors of the library.

This view shows the main entrance to the Community Room. On the day this photo was taken, April 24, 2008, there was a sign at the entrance proclaiming, “Room Finished.”

On June 23, 2008, the first meeting was held in the Community Room even though the library was not yet open to the public. It was a meeting of the joint committee of the two Rotary clubs which had been charged with selecting and obtaining the furnishings for the room. By that date, most of the furnishings were in the building. The committee’s task for the day was to make arrangements for the transfer of funds to the library so the bills for furnishings could be paid and to agree upon the wording for an appropriate plaque to mark the Rotary International Centennial Project in Oswego.

Left to right: Cindy Tascarella, Robert Wood, Charles Young, Mary Shanley

Left to right: Charles Young, Vernon Tryon, Cindy Tascarella, Robert Wood

Kitchenette cabinets and refrigerator were in place on June 23 and the conference table and chairs were used for the meeting.