Please click on the player to hear a
Georgia Public Broadcasting interview
with the RLP
01-22-2015 RPL Interview on
Georgia Public Broadcasting
Located 40 miles southeast of Columbus,
Georgia, Lumpkin is the county seat of
Stewart County and has a population of
almost 3,000 people in the city and
surrounding zip code. Several years
ago, the existing public library, which
was located in an old storefront on the
town square, was closed due to
environmental conditions in the
building.
In March, 2011, The Rural Library
Project was invited by the USDA
StrikeForce Initiative – an agency
charged with helping Georgia’s most
economically challenged counties – to
make a presentation to the Stewart
County Library Board, Lumpkin’s elected
officials, Stewart County Commissioners,
and concerned citizens about the
feasibility of building a new library.
In May, Mayor Charles Gibson and city
staff picked up a generous donation of
library shelving from the Woodruff
Health Sciences Center Library at Emory
University in Atlanta, Georgia. Shown
in the photograph is Dan White, Mayor
Gibson, and Sandra Franklin, Director of
the Woodruff Health Sciences Center
Library.
A second public meeting was held in May
in Lumpkin to gather public input for
the design of the new library. With the
financial support of the Betty and Davis
Fitzgerald Foundation, a grant was
awarded by The Rural Library Project to
the City of Lumpkin to engage the
architectural firm of Praxis 3 to create
conceptual drawings for an affordable
new library building that will reflect
the heritage of the city and project an
image of the city’s future as well.
Judith Corbett of StrikeForce - GA addressing citizens and
officials of
Stewart County in March, 2011, in
Lumpkin.
Dan White, Mayor Charles
Gibson, and Sandra Franklin, Director of
the Woodruff
Health Sciences Center Library at Emory
University in Atlanta, Georgia.
Charles
Gibson, Mayor of Lumpkin, Georgia,
opening a public meeting in
May, 2011, to gather design ideas for a
new public library building.
Click image to see floor plan
Click image to see rendering
Rural
Library Staff gave away over two
hundred books in support of
efforts to re-establish the Lumpkin
Public Library at Fall Fest on Oct
20, 2012. The Fund for Southern
Communities has provided
financial assisstance to the RLP for
this community organizing effort.
