After five long years of planning, renovations to the Humanist Society of Greater Phoenix's Humanist Community Center (HCC) are finally nearing completion, with opening ceremonies to be held this coming December. The road to our own little slice of heaven (you should pardon the expression) has been paved with good intentions--but also strewn with quite of number of potholes. (To see a slide show of our construction project, please see below. Photo credit: Shelley Newman. HSGP is a chapter of the American Humanist Association)

We were very fortunate in receiving the property through a generous donation by two of our members, Dr. Harold and Doreen Saferstein. Harold and Doreen, dedicated and generous humanists and longtime members of HSGP, dreamed of seeing us in our own building instead of wandering nomadically from restaurant to restaurant as our membership continued to grow (presently up to 325 members).

Over the next few years, our eager members put in many hours of physical and mental labor--knocking out walls, tearing out old plumbing and installing new fixtures in the older part of the building. And, most importantly, working to draft plans that adhered to the requirements of the City of Mesa, which demanded that we meet the standards of a commercial building. Finally, after numerous revisions, the plans were approved this past spring.

The property consists of a mid-20^th century adobe house in Mesa, Arizona on .8 of an acre of land. In order to meet city codes, we determined that we needed a licensed contractor to complete the renovations. 

Our biggest challenge has been to raise enough funds to hire a contractor to do it properly. To that end, we held a fundraising drive that saw our members pledging donations and loans over the next five years for a total of $158,000--which, when added to funds we had already raised, gave us enough to finish the project.

We plan for our Humanist Community Center to welcome Humanists now and in generations to come. HCC will have ample room for meetings and our book club; library; storage; parking and child education classrooms for the youngsters (who are, after all, the future of humanism). If you are in the vicinity, we invite you to stop by and visit. The address is 627 West 8th Street (between Alma School and Country Club) in Mesa. 

If you would like to follow the progress of the building, you can go online and watch as the building takes shape. The website is: http://hsgp.org/hh/hhfund.php?faqs=yes. Click on "Renovation Photos" to see weekly updated photos of the work being done.

We hope this project inspires other groups to work towards the goal of having a place of their own, thus giving humanism a real physical presence in the community.

 

Susan Sackett is the president of the Humanist Society of Greater Phoenix and the founder of Humanicon Southwest Inc. She also serves on the American Humanist Association's Board of Directors as secretary and is a certified humanist celebrant.