Editorial: Cozadd room at library is Rotary’s community gem

The Belleville Rotary Club donated $50,000 from its Charles B. Cozadd Rotary Foundation to the Belleville Area Library in 2018 to help fund the Cozadd room. The library board was wrestling with its budget to get everything to balance for the new library it was building. Businesses, groups, and individuals in the community chipped in to help and now are lovingly referred to as “the donors.” The Rotary was one of these donors.
The Cozadd Foundation has been the source of many grants for community groups, projects, and scholarships, but this Charles B. Cozadd Belleville Rotary Foundation Room is the gift that keeps on giving.
Now in the care of the library staff, so many community events – from quilt shows to used-book sales — have taken place in this first-floor meeting/program room at the new library that they are hard to list.
The Belleville City Council takes advantage of the room when it needs more space for council meetings, special strategic planning sessions, and the like. The council was there Tuesday since the regular council chamber was taken up with the state’s new Early Voting project with a voting machine in place to welcome ballots for the Feb. 27 election.
Thank you, Rotary, and thanks to the late, generous, forward-thinking attorney Charles Cozadd, who left this legacy to his community.