By KEVIN CHIRI

Publisher

LAPLACE – The LaPlace Rotary Club has never let small obstacles keep them from accomplishing plenty of good things in St. John Parish.

So they were hardly going to let a rainy day put a damper on the 100th anniversary of Rotary International on Wednesday.

The LaPlace Rotary joined with the international celebration by culminating its “Centennial Project” at the St. John Parish Library, where a beautiful landscape project was dedicated amidst raindrops.

“When we planned what kind of Centennial Project we would do, we wanted to tie in three main goals of the club, which have to do with literacy, youth and beautification. This project was perfect for that,” Rotary Past President and Project Organizer Dean Torres said.

Parish President Nickie Monica, also a Library Board Member, was on hand to help dedicate the project.

“I’m looking forward to a spring day when all of the plants here are in bloom, and we see a little child reading a book on the bench here,” he remarked. “We really appreciate what the Rotary Club has done here for us.”

Randy DeSoto, Library Director, said that the landscape adds to the culture of the library, and highlights the still-relatively new building.

Rotary International is now made up of 1.2 million members in 31,000 clubs, covering 166 countries around the world. Its goal is to be involved in humanitarian projects, all with the aim of furthering good will and peace, Rotary spokesperson Gigi Cubias told the gathering.

The Rotary Club will conclude the project with a bench and plaque in the coming weeks, and the overall project is just one of the various beautification projects at the library.

Already gracing the front is a landscape project to the right of the entrance that was put in by former board member Joey Scontrino, in honor of his wife who died from cancer.

There will also be a bike path soon that will lead to the nearby park, as well as a larger landscape project to the back of the library in the future.