By Brad Webber

United States

In September, the Rotary Club of Novato, California, celebrated the opening of a community center, the culmination of an effort that began in 2007 with a bequest of $5 million by longtime member Bill Jonas. The club worked with the College of Marin to construct a 15,600-square-foot complex on the college’s Indian Valley campus. The center houses a banquet space with the capacity for hundreds of guests, a kitchen, and a stage equipped with the latest audiovisual equipment. The club, whose contribution covered about one-third of the project’s total cost, obtained a 75-year lease as well as naming rights for its benefactors, the late Bill and Adele Jonas, and now holds its meetings at the center. “It was a long-term challenge, but we didn’t give up,” says Sonia Seeman, a co-chair of the project’s planning committee.