T-L Photo/GAGE VOTA The St. Clairsville Library Foundation, the Community Foundation for the Ohio Valley and the St. Clairsville Public Library celebrate reaching a $1million fundraising goal. From left are Susie Nelson of the CFOV; Charlotte Hill, Library Foundation board member; John Estadt, president of the St. Clairsville Library Foundation, Teresa Feisley, foundation board member; Jo Papillo, director of the St. Clairsville Public Library; and Kathy Stephens, library staff member.

ST. CLAIRSVILLE — The Community Foundation for the Ohio Valley celebrated the St. Clairsville Library Foundation Fund growing to over $1 million on Wednesday afternoon.

The St. Clairsville Library Foundation Fund was founded in 2002 by the St. Clairsville Library Foundation Board with the goal of creating an endowment of at least $1 million.

“Today we’re celebrating one of our funds, the St. Clairsville Library Foundation Fund. This group of individuals has been raising money since 2002 with the goal of raising $1 million to have a $1 million endowment that will support the St. Clairsville Public Library with an annual grant from now until the end of time,” Community Foundation Executive Director Susie Nelson said.

The annual grant that will be given to the library will come from the Community Foundation investing the $1 million.

“We have a spending policy of 4%, so the million dollars is invested so hopefully it’ll continue to grow with the market. Every year they’ll probably get about $40,000 a year, which is unrestricted to them. They can use it for salaries, to put on a new roof or whatever their needs are,” Nelson said.

“Our initial goal was to raise $1 million in principle that would be held by the Community Foundation.

“And then once we got to a million dollars, we would start giving off the interest every year for the use of the library for whatever it would need, whether that be structural, for the children, or whatever,” St. Clairsville Library Foundation Board President John Estadt said.

The foundation would hold countless fundraisers over the years such as golf tournaments, barn parties at Feisley’s Tree Farm, and car shows to one day reach the goal of $1 million.

“A lady who is on our board, Sandra Chawla, initially gave us a thousand dollars to start the foundation. Over the years the St. Clairsville Eagles has designated us as a charitable group that they give their proceeds from their Ohio Gambling money to. They have probably given us over $50,000 over the last 20 years and continue to give money to the library,” Estadt said. “A lady by the name of Fayetta Lilley Watkins set up a charitable remainder foundation trust (and) died in September of 2018, and as a result of that we received about $386,000 that contributed to that.”

Recently the library foundation fund was just $100,000 shy of its goal, so Estadt started making phone calls and looking for ways to reach the goal when out of the blue he received a donation of $233,000 from a family member of Fayetta Lilley Watkins. The donation from Watkins’ family member took the fund over $1 million, meaning that after over 20 years it has finally met its goal.

St. Clairsville Public Library Director Jo Papillo started working for the library six months ago.

“I started here in January so I’m kind of learning the ropes myself, but I’ve come to know and love everyone here in the library foundation and my staff here at the library. They’re all great,”

Papillo said.

Papillo mentioned that she is most excited for the library to be able to finally move forward on its renovation project. The renovation project will see the transformation of its meeting space into a community center.

“That’s the goal right now. We have architects on board. We’re kind of doing a design concept and planning,” Papillo added. “Here in the next few months we will hopefully be issuing a request for qualifications to get a construction manager. And then once we get a construction manager on board, that’s when we really hope to start making some changes.”