Why Your Gift Now is Important

A letter from Spencer Adams and Luke Argilla, 2020 Fundraising Co-Chairs

We now need just $500,000 in new donations to complete the renovation of the Community Center. It will be a beautiful and functional building.  You will be proud.  (Our budget contemplates deferral of a few nonessential components of the design; but if we can exceed our fundraising goal we will fold those elements back into the project).

This final phase of fundraising follows the generosity of caring residents who have given or pledged over $1,350,000 to see a vibrant community center in the heart of Sleepy Hollow.  With a commercial loan in place, cash and pledges in the bank, and committed private lending from community members, we will begin the renovation when building permits are complete. Spencer Adams and Luke Argilla lead this “Round 3 Fundraising” to raise $500,000 to meet the $2,800,000 project costs.

The Sleepy Hollow Community Center was christened in the 1950’s, the result of volunteer labor and funding and was lauded in a 1956 Sunset Magazine article as a model for other communities.  Our recent effort began in 2011 following a professional assessment that the old clubhouse was at the end of its useful life: the roof, skylights and windows were leaking, plumbing and electrical systems were worn out, bathrooms were unsightly, walls and ceilings crumbling. In 2013 the Sleepy Hollow Charitable Foundation was established to allow tax deductible charitable giving and to lead the way toward a feasible rebuild of the clubhouse.  After an extensive neighborhood survey a completely new, larger, two-story building seemed affordable. However, as financing potentials changed and costs escalated over a period of years, we pivoted in April 2019 to a lower cost yet extensive renovation of the existing building.

The lower cost renovation design was received very favorably at a Town Hall June 8, 2019 and has been uniformly applauded as a favored approach to the challenges of the decaying clubhouse.  Plans are posted on the Community Center page www.shha.org/communitycenter. Also posted there are the drawings for design approval (received December 12, 2019), the plan set submitted for the building permits December 17, 2019, and renderings of exterior views and site plan including floor plan detail.

We deeply appreciate the 300 families who donated $800,000 in the early phase of fundraising and the 120 families who donated $551,000 in the 2018-2019 fundraising campaign.  Average donations in Round 2 were $4592 and at least 35 families have contributed more than $10,000 each.  Thank you to all who have donated.  We appreciate every donation.  Names of donors are posted on this website and will be permanently honored in our new Community Center.

We now need our neighborhood, all of us, to step up this one last time with new gifts to meet our $500,000 fundraising goal. Pledges can be made in installments and fulfilled as late as February 28, 2021.  Join this final push, be a part of history, help create a Community Center for you and your family to enjoy now and as a legacy to bestow on generations who will us.

Spencer Adams and Luke Argilla, Fundraising Co-Chairs

Donations

Pledge and schedule donations, donate now by credit/debit card or PayPal account, and see the Donor Giving Guide with instructions for other ways to give, including gifts of securities, wire transfers, and donations from an IRA.

Read more about the Charitable Foundation and the design and benefits of our new Community Center.