Getting there.....with a team.

Somehow, I became the appointed blogger. But for Berks County Community Foundation to have gotten to this point, it took a whole team effort from our staff.

The real point person on this project is Franki Aitken, our Senior Vice President. She's the one who negotiates contracts, settles disputes, checks on the progress and reminds me that there is a budget for technology and that I will not exceed it. Without her juggling skills, the hole you see at 3rd and Court Streets would still be just an idea.

We had to raise a lot of the money for this building. I'll talk about that more later in future posts, but without the communications talent of our Vice President for Marketing, Heidi Williamson there wouldn't have been the support material for the fundraising, we wouldn't have a blog, there wouldn't have been a groundbreaking. In short, there probably would have been a hole in the ground, but you wouldn't have known about it.

Rick Mappin, our Vice President for Grantmaking is our "Green Building Guy". Without his connections in the field of sustainable design and construction I'm not sure any of us would have learned half of what we now know about sustainability. Because of his leadership in the field of sustainable design, we had connections to firms and people that other groups simply don't have.

And all of us rely on a support team that includes Vivi Anthony, Leta Doganes and Sally Ott that make sure the day to day work of The Community Foundation still gets done. And when we do an event like the groundbreaking, it's "all hands on deck" with the support team making sure details like nametags and special meal requests are handled and that, when I leave the office, I actually have a copy of my speech.

Without our Board of Directors, we wouldn't be anywhere close to this far along. They helped raise funds, contributed design ideas and brought valued expertise to a team that's done a lot of things together, but---well---it's the first and probably last time this team will build a building together.

So, I'll keep writing the blogs while the rest of the team makes sure that the project moves forward. But everyone should know when they undertake a project of this scale, it's a team commitment.