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Campbell community center plan progresses
By jeanne starmack
campbell
A city councilman who spearheaded an effort to start a community center says that plan is progressing as a group organizes fundraisers to buy a building.
Bryan Tedesco proposed a plan several months ago to house the center in the old Faith Temple Baptist Church. The building is on Roosevelt Drive near the city building.
Tedesco has said he envisions a place that offers meals for senior citizens, services for disabled people and after-school and other youth activities.
He said the building won’t be bought with taxpayers’ money. A group that will be called the Roosevelt Park Improvement Club, he said, will raise the funds to buy it. That group will donate the building to the city. He said the group discussed the plan at a meeting Monday.
Four fundraisers are being planned to raise $50,000 to buy the bank-owned building, he said: a reverse raffle, a steak fry, an Octoberfest and a spaghetti dinner.
Juanita Kolmacic, who is co-chairwoman of the group along with Jackie Wasko, said the first fundraiser will be the raffle. She said it will be a catered event at the end of February at St. John Church on Reed Street.
The fundraising, she believes, will be successful.
“A lot of citizens from Campbell, they’re pretty giving,” she said, adding that giving back to the senior citizens in the community is important.
“It’s good — it’s concerned citizens getting together for the betterment of the city,” Tedesco said.
Tedesco said the building will have to be inspected before it’s purchased.
He said that in the event the sale falls through, all of the money raised will be used instead for improvements at Roosevelt Park.
Another committee, made up of community leaders who got together at the request of the city’s Ecumenical Council, had formed two years ago to explore starting a community center.
It also had an interest in the old church building. But a plan to have the city council help it obtain grants fell through, and the committee stopped its effort.