Ebooks, Netflix, and Library Building Projects (Part 76, Hopewell Public Library)

MOMS Club helps library with renovation project. (Hopewell Valley News, 7/14/2011)

Excerpt: Over 40 years ago, several members of the Hopewell Valley Jaycee-ettes — the women’s auxiliary of the Hopewell Valley Jaycees (junior chamber of commence) — spearheaded a “revamping” project at the Hopewell Public Library on East Broad Street.

Susan Fowler, formerly of Hopewell Township, was president of the Jaycee-ettes at the time and remembers well the time and effort she and others put into the project, which included the creation of the Children’s Room on the library’s second floor.

Other work included “weeding out all sorts of trash, replacing old books and rebinding others,” ordering books for the new children’s section and implementing the use of the Dewey Decimal System (a system of library classification), she said.

What became the Children’s Room was, in the 1960s, a “junk room,” used primarily for storage, Ms. Fowler said Monday.

In 1968, for their work, the Jaycee-ettes were given the Herbert S. Rockwell Recognition Award — presented for several years to groups and/or individuals for outstanding community service. The recognition dinners usually were held at the former Hopewell Valley American Legion Post 339 home on Van Dyke Road.

Recently, in 2011, another group — the Hopewell Valley MOMS Club — helped with a major renovation project at the same library, with a focus on the Children’s Room.