Fans of the Village Green project have been following progress closely in May. About 100 pavers have been sold as of May 15, with some folks buying them for kids or colleagues, and some people ordering up poems for their pavers.

Nevertheless, we get daily reminders that people who don’t get email, or miss an issue of the Kingston Community News, or don’t pass by reader boards, still need this information: We’re selling engraved paving stones for the courtyard of the new Community Center. Details and an order form can be found at www.kingstonvillagegreen.org/images/PaverOrderformv.2.pdf or at the Kingston library, the Kingston Chamber of Commerce, and the Kingston Financial Center. You can get paver forms bearing instructions about how to pay and what your engraving word allotment is.

Apparently, pavers are an idea whose time has come: We’d sold more than 90 before May 15! And the really great news is there’s an anonymous match for the first $20,000 of pavers sold, so that means we’d raised at least $20,000 between May 5 and May 15. So if you missed Mi Sueño’s tacos and the piñatas and the community party on May 5, you still have a chance to participate in the paver program.

Some of you also got word that you could donate via Seattle Foundation on May 15, and your donation would benefit the community even more than usual, because it would be partially matched by Seattle Foundation’s GiveBig “stretch” fund. Stay tuned for what the total raised on May 15 turned out to be. It was a fun way to give, knowing that our gifts would be stretched a bit further.

Finally, we were the beneficiaries of an amazing gift from Central Market for the Village Green community center: $30,000 and a pledge of $20,000 over the next four years! Wow! What great neighbors.

Thanks to the Friends
This month, we’re spotlighting the Kingston Friends of the Library. They kicked off our capital campaign with the very first multi-year pledge of $25,000, paid the first payment on it in 2008 (!), completed that pledge last year, and pledged another $30,000 over the next five years, starting this year. This story is a real Kingston story — about volunteerism, hard work, vision, and doing a lot with a little.

Part of the Friends’ vision was to not limit or designate their donation to the library, but to make it available for the entire community center. That’s remarkably important to funders — they want to see that we have support for the entire project, and the Friends will have one of the meeting rooms down the hall from the library named after them because of this broad vision.

The Village Green Foundation owes the Friends a big debt of gratitude, and we’d like to say thank you publicly.

P-Patch plots are now available
For more info, go to www.kingstonvillagegreen.org/PP/index.htm.