ESPL Foundation Donor Reception

6 September, 2023

Photographs by Laura Springham and Megan Ames

Trust and Generosity

by John Willis Edmonds, IV

It is my enormous pleasure to welcome you all here to our formal opening of the Eastern Shore of Virginia Regional Library and Heritage Center. I hope you are all enjoying the tangible evidence of your generosity and trust.

Just one question, is there anyone by the name of Watts here this evening? Does anyone know the Watts from Parksley? I would like to show you something. Kitty, can you read this label in this suit? Kitty Hall is our Corresponding Secretary on the Foundation.

“It says, Watts Brothers, Parksley, Virginia.” Thank you, Kitty.

My father came to Parksley after graduating from law school in 1956. He was leaving for an internship at a New York law firm and he needed a suit. Watts’ clothing shop in Parksley gave this suit to him on credit because he did not have the money to pay for it. This suit is tangible proof of what this fair city Parksley had to offer: trust and generosity. The Watts Brothers’ faith and investment in my father’s future have paid off almost seventy years later.  You and I are giving Parksley, and Accomack and Northampton Counties the greatest cultural and historical center on the Eastern Shore of Virginia: The Regional Library and Heritage Center in which we stand.

It is open to everyone six days a week no matter if they are toddlers or teachers, no matter if they identify as he, she, they or my favorite, Your Grace.

No matter if they have Haitian or Huguenot Heritage,

No matter if they are learning English as their first language, studying English as a second language, or finishing their research on the generations of multiracial families on the Shore;

All are welcome

No matter if they are benefactors or beneficiaries.

We have a suite of children’s facilities, a range of rooms where teenagers can meet, study and create, and an articulated set of closed and open spaces for adults. We also have a state-of-the-art archive complex and the Shore’s largest, non-denominational space where up to 185 people, born heres, come heres and from heres can gather There is also Wi-Fi, ample parking, and yes, bathrooms that do not depend on septic tanks. (Don’t ask; I won’t tell.)

The bedrock supporting these 21st century amenities are your generosity towards your community and your trust in the people around you.  You have paid for this enormous space; your trust and generosity have created a building that welcomes everyone. You reached into your pockets and opened your coffers and gave freely to one of humankind’s noblest causes: free access to all knowledge for all people. A library is the only institution that can make this boast. It is an enormous boast, but then again, this is an enormous, egalitarian institution.

It has only taken fourteen years, but now we are standing in a structure where the simple pride of being a generous, trusting person ripples out to the entire community, a community who can also be proud of having a 21st Century library funded and built for them. I thank you. on behalf of the Foundation and the Board of Trustees. You have all done well, and you have done more good to those around you more good to those whom you will never see or meet, more good to and for them than you have ever done for yourselves.

This library in Parksley will last longer than this suit from 1956. There are a handful of people here tonight who remember the name in this suit. Now the community and everyone who comes to this building for free knowledge is going see your names.

They will remember who you are.

They will remember what you have done.

We thank you, again and again and again!

John Willis Edmonds, IV

September 6, 2023