Run will raise funds for library

A Pitt accounting-and-finance association has planned a 5-kilometer race to raise money to… A Pitt accounting-and-finance association has planned a 5-kilometer race to raise money to build a library in a flood-ravaged borough of the city.

Pitt’s branch of the Beta Alpha Psi finance honor society organized Run to Read, an event to raise funds for the Millvale Library Project, which will be held Saturday, April 12, at the Millvale Riverfront Park.

The project has been raising money since last year to build a library for the small borough across the Allegheny River from Lawrenceville.

Run to Read is the largest fundraising effort the group has initiated thus far.

“We have no experience doing a run so we were not entirely sure of what response we’re going to get,” Matt Herring, co-president of Beta Alpha Psi, said.

So far, Run to Read has raised more than $1,000 in the pre-registration stage.

Several Millvale restaurants are coming out to support the fundraising event with free food and drinks for the participants.

The run begins at 9 a.m. followed by a family-fun walk at 10 a.m.

The fact that many Millvale homes and businesses have been seriously damaged by repeated flooding in recent years prompted the library project.

Beta Alpha Psi members, who joined a presentation competition in the fall, chose Millvale to be the subject of their business project after hearing about flooding that hit the community in the summer of 2007.

They were to formulate a business plan to help an “economically distressed community,” said Herring.

The Millvale Library Project was initiated to help rebuild the community and provide its first public library. Currently, the closest library to Millvale is in Lawrenceville.

The project is part of the non-profit group New Sun Rising, which provides charity funds and services to Western Pennsylvania communities.

“It was a way to help revive the community,” said Herring. “There was a lot of interest expressed in a library.”

The library project was started by Millvale residents Tricia George and her roommate Brian Wolovich, who is a middle school teacher.

George, a Pitt junior and urban studies major, said that the library will be more than just a center of learning and information.

“It will be a community gathering place,” George said, adding that they plan on including a coffee shop in the library.

The library will also provide Internet access to patrons, a service many Millvale residents can’t afford to have in their homes.

“I feel like the world is at my fingertips because I have access to technology and access to people. I feel like that should be an option to everyone,” George said.

Millvale suffers from a low education-attainment level. According to a November 2007 article in the Pittsburgh City Paper, the 2000 census showed that less than five percent of Millvale residents have a college degree – a figure far below the national average of 15.5 percent.

George became devoted to the project after she asked her young next-door neighbor what she wanted to be when she grew up.

The little girl said she wanted to work in the Heinz factory. George inquired if she’d rather be an astronaut or a ballerina, but the little girl had made up her mind about her future.

So far, the Millvale Library Project has received numerous donations, including a donation of about $250,000 in used furniture from the Shaler School District’s library.

The library project has also secured free computers and expects a $15,000 grant this summer.

The library will start operating unofficially this summer, with Run to Read marking the beginning of the summer-reading program for children.

Run to Read can be contacted through Beta Alpha Psi at bappitt@gmail.com.