Facility updated

DUNKIRK — One of the final grants provided by The Dunkirk Foundation before its merger with The Portland Foundation went to the city’s library.

It will be part of a celebration Monday.

Dunkirk Public Library will host a ribbon-cutting ceremony and plaque presentation at 6:30 p.m. Monday to celebrate renovations to the facility. An open house will run from 6:30 to 7:30 p.m.

“It just needed updating,” said librarian Stephanie Crouch. “And it just looks better.”

The project involved a variety of fixes and repairs, the largest of which was filling in the interior of the ceiling where there had formerly been skylights. The lights had been covered over during a roofing project years before — they needed to be eliminated because of problems with leaks — but the interior had not yet been addressed.

“There was just ceilings up there with old skylights showing on the inside,” said Ron Fuller, who was president of the Dunkirk Public Library and Glass Museum board during the project and is now a board member. (Craig Faulkner is now president.) “They were completely boxed over on the outside.”

Other work included painting the walls around the exterior flower beds, replacing lintels around the windows, fixing areas of the block wall that were broken, replacing a window and painting the entirety of the interior.

The back door to the library was also replaced and other doors in the building were adjusted to make them more functional.

“The bathroom doors, you couldn’t even get into,” said Crouch. “They were so hard to push open.

“And then our other doors, they were just uneven.”

In conjunction with the library work, The Glass Museum, which shares the same building, got some upgrades as well. The main entryway to the museum on the northwest side of the building was reconstructed to make it compliant with the Americans with Disabilities Act. There was also foundation work, sandblasting and painting completed.

Funding for the library work came from a $140,000 grant from The Dunkirk Foundation's Gayle & Marilee Gaunt Library Fund. The Gaunts had left funding specifically to be used to make upgrades to the library.

The Glass Museum’s portion of the project was funded through $36,963 in county economic development income tax (EDIT) money.

“We just want to thank The Dunkirk Foundation and the county commissioners,” said Fuller, noting that the project had been in the planning stages for about five years.

The work, handled by Mid-States Concrete and Construction of Redkey, was completed this summer.

Before the most recent project, some ceiling work had been done in the museum and new LED lighting was installed throughout the building. All of the work is focused on extending the life of the facility that was built in 1989.

“It keeps the building viable for the public,” said Fuller.

The library/museum board is continuing to work toward other goals. Already in the plans is a $5,000 roof replacement for the north corner of the building.

Also, six more windows need to be replaced. The stucco on the upper part of the exterior of the building will also need to either be removed or sealed. (The library continues to accept donations as it works toward funding those projects.)

“Every time we fix something, we see something else,” said Fuller.

Looking toward the future, Crouch noted goals such as expanding programming and bringing back the after-school program that was well-attended before being shut down during the coronavirus pandemic. Fuller said he would also like to see the computer lab expanded.