The Sedona Public Library, the Sedona Arts Center and the Rotary Club of Sedona are all celebrating their 65th anniversaries this year, so it was fitting that  they held a joint celebration on Wednesday, June 21, in the library’s courtyard.  The heads of all three  organizations shared a few words about their recent accomplishments as Sedona based sculptor Charles DeLay’ unveiled his work “The Poetess.”

Sedona Public Library

The setting was a far cry from the first library, which began with three shelves in a donated space in Uptown filled with secondhand books and magazines. SPL’s budget has also evolved since its founding, as attendees applauded the recent decision by the city council to increase the city’s financial contribution to SPL under its new three year term contract with an annual contribution of $865,200.

“We now have 23 staff, over 100 volunteers, [and] we welcome over 100,000 patrons every year,” SPL Board of Trustee President Daniel Gallagher said to the audience. “We’ve had a pretty darn successful 65 years, and we hope the next 65 years will be just as successful.”

To commemorate the occasion, DeLay unveiled his sculpture “The Poetess,” which will now be on permanent display in the Courtyard.

“I wanted to create a very sensitive-looking person, calm, probably aware of things around that poet,” DeLay said to the crowd. “I had the challenge of creating some sort of indication of the inner dynamics of a poet, a poet who works  with words in unusual and creative ways. I created a movement in this sculpture through the drapery. It’s not a portrait. It’s a generic vision of a poet. I hope you understand the depths of my feelings when I say, ‘thank you, Sedona.’”

Sedona Arts Center

“The Art Center — what a treasure,” said David Simmer, incoming president of the Rotary Club of Sedona. Simmer has also led the library and the arts center at other times. “This is a community that is animated by artists. It is an absolute gem in our community. Many people come here, drawn not just by the beauty of our community, but by the imagination and creativity that is exemplified by the Sedona Arts Center. All three of the organizations are so critical to this 65-year development of Sedona into what it is today.”

The development of SAC is ongoing, its Chief Executive Officer Julie Richard said.

“We’ve created a strategic plan [and] a campus master plan to address our long-neglected buildings,” Richard said. “The Art Barn was never meant to be an office. It was never meant to be anything but a barn … We’re laying the groundwork for another wonderful 65 years.”

Most of SAC’s building issues are related to the barn it uses for exhibitions and operations behind the main gallery off SR 89A. The barn has no fire suppression system and has accessibility issues. In addition, the gallery needs an elevator. Richard said that implementing SAC’s master plan for improvements will likely take about five years.

Rotary Club of Sedona

“This last year, my personal passion is to help working families and the reason is there’s no other stressful time of life than birth and death,” outgoing President of the Sedona Rotary Club Jean Barton said. “When you are a young couple starting out with children, and you don’t have a bunch of money, you may get evicted because you can’t afford where you’re living. The dynamics of the family change. It’s very stressful.”

Barton said that her successor Simmer’s biggest challenge will be to grow the club’s membership and later elaborated on how she sees young families in the area being challenged by the lack of regional health care.

“When the Sedona Red Rock News gave their quality of life [rankings] for the community, the two lowest ratings were health care and education,” Barton said. “What people don’t get is they’re directly connected, because I don’t know a single doctor or nurse that will move to a community where the schools aren’t great.”

Since the club’s mission is “Working hard for working families,” they will continue to work with Manzanita Outreach to provide food packages to residents, and with West Sedona School’s free Wildcats Extended Day Program, to which the group donated $5,000 that was matched by Health First Foundation of Northern Arizona.

“Funding the school’s extended day program benefits children’s health and meets the needs of parents working in Sedona, even if they can’t find housing or afford to live in Sedona,” Barton, a retired pediatrician, said on the group’s website. “I couldn’t have worked without the extended day program at our children’s school. I could afford to pay, but my clinic’s support staff struggled. They worried about their kids’ safety and tried to parent by phone while at work.” 

The Rotary Club of Sedona also carries its social work beyond the Verde Valley.

“We in Rotary discovered in 2016 that there were 70,000 people on the Navajo reservation who live without clean running water in their home,” Simmer said. “We have been working with an organization out of California, that’s our operational partner, called DigDeep.”

The group installs 1,200-gallon underground cisterns at homes in the Navajo Nation. Constructing cisterns rather than extending system pipes is a necessity due to the lack of infrastructure and the terrain. 

“DigDeep installs the cistern along with a solar panel and sink in the home … This is life-changing,” Simmer said. “Rotary has been DigDeep’s primary funding for about the last seven years. [Nationally], Rotary has raised about $1.1 million and the Rotary Club of Sedona has raised about a quarter of a million dollars.”

The Rotary Club of Sedona also recently named SPL Executive Director Judy Poe as the winner of its 2023 Make-A-Difference Award, which the group has been handing out since 2015. The award included a donation to a local charity of Poe’s choice.

“I’m donating the money to [the Sedona Area Homeless Alliance],” Poe said. “It is for their Good Night Bag Program. SAHA makes bags for newly homeless children between the ages of, I think, 2 and 14. When they find out about newly homeless children, they immediately give them a bag with a sleeping bag, blanket, headlamp, journal, pens and crayons, depending on age. To try to help them feel a little bit [better] about themselves.”