The Mancos Public Library recently received $2,500 from the El Pomar Foundation to replace the site’s phone system.
The phone replacement is of an urgent nature, said Shari Dunn, manager of development and adult programming at the library – communication to and from the library has become increasingly difficult.
“We are deeply grateful: It arrived just in the nick of time; we have been having more and more difficulties in recent days (an inability for staff to call 911, and patrons sometimes unable to call in),” Dunn wrote in a letter thanking the foundation for the donation earlier in March.
The total cost of the replacement is $6,000, Dunn said.
The Mancos Public Library officially opened in 1946, though it has migrated throughout town over the past decades – the collection has been housed in sites including the old Town Hall, the high school basement, and 111 N. Main St.
In 2009, the library opened the doors at its current location at 211 W. First St., using a “cobbled together mismatch” of a phone system, Dunn said, with handsets that had been salvaged from a tech company and the city of Cortez.
“But it made it possible for the new library to open,” she told the Journal.
Now, however, replacing the 10 phones and accompanying system is a top priority, and the library is seeking ways to secure the remaining $3,500 needed.
“We are busily crafting a strategy to raise the balance, so the new system can be installed forthwith,” Dunn wrote in her letter to El Pomar.
El Pomar was founded in 1937 and contributes about $22 million annually to nonprofit organizations throughout Colorado. At the board of trustees’ February meeting, the foundation also awarded grants to two other local nonprofits in addition to the Mancos library: $10,000 to Big Brothers Big Sisters of Southwest Colorado and $10,000 to Seeds of Learning, an early care and education center in Pagosa Springs.
ealvero@the-journal.com
