Events
Squamscott
Community Commons Celebrates Land Purchase
On
July 1, 2008, donors and volunteers for Squamscott Community
Commons gathered to celebrate the acquisition of the Exeter
AREA Junior High School property. The land purchase represents
a milestone in the organization’s progress to build
a community center for Seacoast NH. The center will house
six nonprofit agencies, including a full-service YMCA
facility.
The
event was hosted at the beautifully refurbished Exeter
Inn. Speaking to a crowd of nearly 100 supporters, Board
Chair, Davis Farmer, said “We are the YMCA, we are
Richie McFarland Children’s Center, we are SeaCare
Health Services, we are Exeter Center for Creative Arts,
we are Rockingham Community Action, we are Great Bay Kids’
Company. We are the agencies who will continue to provide
vital services to our friends and neighbors, we are the
people of this community coming together to build a facility
that will be practical, functional and ... a model for
communities all around this country and beyond.”
Squamscott
Community Commons was born nearly ten years ago as the
brainchild of several area nonprofit agencies. Realizing
the need to expand their outreach to families, youth and
seniors throughout the region, they conceived the idea
of creating a community-oriented facility, serving as
their home and allowing them to work together to deliver
important and much-needed services to the community. Affordable
childcare, health and wellness programs, creative arts
classes, walking trails and opportunities for education
about the environment and the Exeter River Watershed –
these are just of few of the services that will be available
at The Commons. The high-performance facility will be
sustainably built to LEED certification standards. "After
ten years of great ideas, ten years of vision, ten years
of good hard work ... we stand here together with the
most tangible proof yet that this vision is real and realizable,"
said Farmer, as he congratulated the project’s supporters
on their land purchase achievement.
Squamscott
Community Commons continues to make strides toward the
development and construction of the community center that
is so eagerly anticipated by the community. Just a few
days ago, on the site of the old junior high building,
a boy named Lucas stopped one of The Commons’ staff
members to ask, "What are you doing here?" She
explained that Squamscott Community Commons was working
hard to build a community center and YMCA right over where
the empty school building sat. "Wow!" said Lucas,
"That will really change my life!"
Indeed,
Lucas. Indeed.
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