CRANBURY: Chinese New Year event helps raise funds to build new library

Chinese families of Cranbury gathered Feb. 27 to provide homemade food and cultural performances in honor of the Chinese New Year – The Year of the Monkey – and in support of the campaign to build a stand-alone library in Cranbury.
The Chinese families teamed up with the Cranbury Public Library Foundation not only to raise funds, but to raise awareness of the project and its progress within the greater Cranbury community.
The campaign for the new library is more than two-thirds of the way to breaking ground for the new facility. Engineering drawings are completed, and the project will break ground when $2.9 million is raised.
Given the success of last year’s celebration, the event this year was moved to Fellowship Hall in the First Presbyterian Church. More than 100 participants enjoyed the food and entertainment, and almost $4,000 was raised to support the new library.
The project is an unprecedented effort to build a municipal library through 100 percent private donations. Both Princeton and Plainsboro recently built new libraries that were jointly funded by private donors and their respective municipalities. Cranbury Township has allocated land for the new library on the Master Plan, and has committed to building the parking lot next to the new library, but is looking to the foundation to raise 100 percent of the funds for the new building.
Cranbury is one of the few towns in New Jersey that shares public library space with a school library. The capital campaign by the foundation will ensure that the freestanding library will support the needs of families, teens, adults and community groups with dedicated spaces for their needs.