Bremer Foundation $80,000 Grant Challenge

Big BIG library news! Are you sitting down? We’ve been awarded an $80,000 grant from the Bremer Foundation for our BCL Pillar and Restoration Project! What an honor! The challenge of this news is that, before we are given the money, we must provide $145,000. This includes money not only for the repair of the pillars but also funding for: chimney repairs (brick is loose and could become dangerous); repair of retaining wall; tuck pointing and seed money for future tuck-pointing needed; and wood repair on outside windows as well as painting. The library will look amazing after these projects are finally worked on. 

The good news? The community of Bayfield and surrounding communities, and the City of Bayfield, we’ve raised over $53,000 to date. This is incredible! That leaves $93,000 left to raise (the total project budget is $203,000). I know this sounds like a lot—and it is—but I know we will get there. I have plans to contact more foundations and I also have plans to start a Go Fund Me campaign; and some other ideas, too. THANK YOU so much very much to everyone who’s given to this giant project. I can’t say it or write it enough.

~Blair Nelson, Director, Bayfield Carnegie Library.