Campaign Donors

William H. & Marion C. Alexander Family Library

Italic type indicates text to be engraved on plaque. Please verify that this information is correct. Contact Lori Lane at 717-234-4961 x-110 with any corrections or changes.

The Alexander Family

"A New Library"

Marion C. and William H. Alexander are well-known in many Harrisburg area circles for what they give back to the community, both locally and regionally.  Born in Harrisburg and reared respectively in Paxtang (Marion) and Colonial Park (William), they were classmates in and graduates of Central Dauphin High School. Both have continued to support the region where they were born and raised, tirelessly supporting many worthwhile efforts, both large and small.  Together they have served as Campaign Chair for the United Way of the Capital Region and each has served as Chair of the Board for that organization. Each also was a recipient of the John Baum award.  Jointly, they received Theater Harrisburg’s Award for Distinguished Service to the Arts.

Marion has received many additional awards and accolades, including the YWCA”s Women of Excellence Legacy Award, an Arts Innovator Award, Alumna of the Year at Harrisburg Academy, and, in 2008, was awarded an honorary doctorate from HACC.  A listing of her board service and campaign chairmanship reads much like a directory of the Harrisburg regional associations. 

The Alexanders’ devotion to community does not end with asking others.  Their own generosity has benefited many causes, not the least of which is the new library for Hummelstown.  Their munificent gift was the catalyst for planning the local library when they rose to the challenge set by the Dauphin County Library System.  A long-tenured member of the DCLS Board of Trustees, Marion Alexander and her family responded by donating the amount established for the naming right of the new library and set the Hummelstown campaign on its way. 

Karen Cullings, Community Relations Director for the DCLS says, “Marion has set a truly exemplary example of dedicated service. Library staff and her fellow Board members respect her for her strong sense of mission in raising funds for the library, her frank assessment of issues and her unwavering attention to the goals on which she has set her sights. Personally, I have been inspired by her unflinching support of the library system and the way in which her heart, which is behind the library's mission 100%, is often ‘on her sleeve,’ whether she's discussing an operational issue or asking a community member for funds to support a library project.”

Others locally who have worked with Marion on the Blue and White Gala for the Lower Dauphin Falcon Foundation praise her commitment to the place she calls home, “She is tireless in seeking all avenues of support for this community and its schools,” notes Vice-President Judith Witmer.  This clearly reflects what the Alexanders themselves say about Hummelstown,  “We love the town, love the people.”

The Pollock Family

"Thrilled to have the opportunity to give back to the library"

The William H. & Marion C. Alexander Family Library Capital Campaign is a perfect fit for the S. Wilson and Grace Milliman Pollock Foundation because both are interested in children, education and life-long learning.

The foundation, founded by S. Wilson Pollock, an engineer on the Manhattan Project and former vice president of engineering at AMP, and Grace Milliman Pollock, a former Broadway actress and ballerina, is dedicated to improving the lives of others in the community through charitable giving to many causes, including scholarships, libraries, educational institutions and community organizations.

Board members and sisters Lauren Pollock Cacciamani, Courtney Pollock Gordon and Lindsay Pollock are very familiar with the Hummelstown Library.  They grew up participating in programs at the library, currently located on South John Street.  They checked books out regularly while attending story times in the children’s room in the basement.  Lindsay fondly recalls reading the antics of The Jolly Postman, while Courtney and Lauren reminisce about reading The Little House and Katie Morag Delivers the Mail.  All graduated from Lower Dauphin School District, and Courtney continues to be involved with literature as an elementary teacher.  All are prolific readers, enjoy contemporary novels, and consider the library instrumental in making them aficionados of fiction.

Lauren Cacciamani, a graduate of the Susquehanna University Sigmund Weis School of Business, currently works as an IT manager for PHEAA and resides in Lower Paxton Township with her husband, Paul, an attorney with the firm of Cipriani & Werner, P.C., in Lemoyne.  Courtney Gordon received a B.S. in elementary education from Penn State and a master’s of gifted education from Campbell University in North Carolina.  This past spring she moved back to the area after spending the past several years at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, with her husband, Matt, who recently completed a four-year commitment with the United States Army as a Captain with the 82nd Airborne.  She is teaching in the gifted education program for the Central Dauphin School District and lives in Hummelstown.  Lindsay Pollock is a graduate of the University of Delaware with a degree in human resource management, currently works for IBM in its college recruitment division, and lives in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. Lindsay followed her boyfriend Ryan Burk to North Carolina. Ryan is currently working on his PhD in economics at the University of North Carolina. Ryan is also a graduate of Lower Dauphin. Grace Pollock serves as chairman of the Pollock foundation and addition to her granddaughters, Dr. David McLane of Camp Hill is also a member of the board.

The Pollock sisters are thrilled to have the opportunity to give back to the library where they spent so much time when they were growing up and to their community of Hummelstown.

Charles Alexander
by Dr. Judith Witmer

"Award-Winning Architect for New Library"

The name Alexander is familiar in the Harrisburg area, a name synonymous with the construction industry and a firm with a reputation of quality, integrity, and service in Central Pennsylvania since 1928. Charles Alexander is fourth generation in the building industry, but has taken a different pathway as an architect with, as he says, “building in my blood.” Charles, the son of William H. and Marion C. Alexander, grew up in the Hummelstown area and is a graduate of Lower Dauphin High School, Class of 1982. He spent his summers interning for local architects, while during the school term taking every art and drafting course the high school offered, including the highly heralded “Longitudinal Studies” which found students working on the renovation of the stone summer kitchen of the original Mumma property on East Main Street. Alexander earned a Bachelor’s of Architecture from Cornell University where he was the recipient of several honors including the AIA Gold Medal and was named a Presidential Scholar. He then earned a second professional degree, a Master’s of Architecture from Yale University.

Following a three-year internship in the Baltimore area, Charles established his own practice, Alexander Design Studio (ADS) in 1993 and began to build his clientele through projects such as the renovation and addition to Derry Presbyterian Church in Hershey and the Interfaith Chapel at the Penn State University Medical Center. From the beginning, Alexander says, “ADS has focused on the principle that good design is the marriage of intellectual ideas and rigorous functional problem solving.” Over the years he has grown the practice to include as many as a dozen other architects and interns practicing in an open studio environment in the renovated 19th Century Masonic Lodge in Historic Ellicott City, Maryland. The studio has remained diverse in its portfolio doing projects that range from small high end residential homes to large institutional projects.

Among the Central Pennsylvania projects of note designed by Alexander Design Studio are the West Shore Country Club, Grace Baptist Church in Carlisle, the American Cancer Society headquarters in Hershey, The Hershey Area Playhouse, and the InterCon Systems corporate campus.
ADS architects have received numerous design awards for projects from the American Institute of Architects and their work has been showcased in national journals. ADS designs extend throughout the mid-Atlantic and include projects such as the Beth El Synagogue, the Roland Park Library, the Loyola College Spiritual Retreat Center, the Mikulski Center at the Living Classrooms Foundation, and the region’s first LEED for Homes Silver rated multi-family housing, Overlook at Clipper Mill, most of which are in the Baltimore area. The Clipper Mill project was also named the Homebuilder’s Association of Maryland’s 2008 Outstanding Home Award for Green Building.

As an early advocate for “green” buildings, Charles was quoted in EcoHome in Summer 2008: “We have always done green designs; we just didn’t know it at the time. Solar orientation, daylighting, natural ventilation, local materials, minimal site disturbance, preferences for urban infill sites—these have all been traits of our work for some time.”
Celebrating fifteen years in business in 2008, Alexander follows the family example of commitment to community service in that the Alexander Design Studio has ranked for the past five years among the top five corporate givers as a percent of billings in the Baltimore metro area.

Relative to the design for the local library here in Hummelstown, Alexander says, “I was honored to have a chance to do something in the town near where I grew up and the library is such an important piece of the civic fabric it is a double honor to work on it. The design follows the theme in a lot of our work which is to be contextual yet clearly of the time in which it was built. This dichotomy plays itself out in a dynamic and glassy children’s wing attached to a more traditional brick box that represents the former national Hotel that once occupied the site. Inside it is a state of the art facility with improved technology, high efficiency heating and lighting, and an expanded collection. A much needed added feature is the second level which houses a community meeting room and offices.”

According to Dr. Judith Witmer, co-chair of the community fund-raising committee, “We, in turn, are honored to have an architect of such stature for this library, one who understands the importance not only of good design and function, but also has a deep-rooted respect for local history. The bonus, of course, is that Charles Alexander is an example of the quality education that extends basic class work, which has always been a hallmark of Lower Dauphin High School.”

Donald Reed
By William S. Jackson

“Never Say Can’t Until You Try.”

That was the motto of the Hummelstown High School Class of 1943 and it might well be a lifetime motto for Donald Albert Reed, who was both president and valedictorian of that class and who later demonstrated time and again his willingness to “try” hard on behalf of his country and his community.

Born in Oberlin to Morris and Clara Cockley Reed, Donald Reed grew up in Hummelstown and progressed from the old Price Elementary School, through Junior High and High School.A bright young man, he entered Drexel University in Philadelphia following service in the U.S. Army in World War II, during which he fought in the “Battle of the Bulge.” He was among those who took advantage of the G.I. Bill for his college education. Excelling at Drexel, he continued on and received a Master’s Degree in Business Administration from Temple University in Philadelphia.

While it isn’t known if he held another job before joining Armstrong World Industries, he stayed with them for the next 39 years, retiring in 1989 as chief accountant of employee benefits.In 1980, Reed was designated one of 167 charter-certified Employee Benefit Specialists by the International Foundation of Employee Benefit Plans and the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. He had also been named most valuable member of the Lancaster Chapter of the National Association of Accountants for 1959-60.

The Bulletin, the monthly magazine of the National Association of Accountants, published an article by Reed in January 1960. The article was titled “A Pilgrim’s Progress Toward Electronic Data Processing,” putting Reed out front in the coming revolution of computers. The article presented an approach for companies in the purchase and use of computers based on Armstrong’s experience.

None of this was a surprise to his Hummelstown High classmates. In their yearbook, which he edited, his classmates called him Most Influential, Most Studious, Most Likely to Succeed, Quietest and also destined to be a Bachelor.

Herb Eckenroth, a classmate and one of his best friends recalls him: “He was shy, modest and personified what I think our moral standards should be in this current changing society. He was an only child and was polite, courteous and soft spoken but always maintained a certain air of dignity to others. He was a reverent man and a brilliant student, graduating at the head of our class (1943).

“I recall specifically one time when he preached a sermon in our church (Evangelical United Brethren) and it was outstanding. He was not a complainer and carried himself as though he possessed all the confidence and trustworthiness required to pass over the next hurdle.”

His classmates had him pretty well pegged, as he quietly rose through the ranks at Armstrong World Industries and he never married.

When he died at age 67 on August 6, 1992, he was the last member of his family. However, Hummelstown had never left his mind and was as close to “family” as he had left. Thus, when his estate was settled, he left his “family” a total of one million dollars – a quarter million each to Trinity United Methodist Church, The Hummelstown Fire Company, The Hummelstown Area Historical Society and … The William H. & Marion C. Alexander Family Library.

Donald Reed’s generous bequeath to the Hummelstown Community Library grew to more than $300,000 and was the financial bedrock which permitted the Dauphin County Library System to move ahead and purchase what will be the site for the new library at the intersection of West Second and North Railroad streets.

He will be remembered when the new library is completed with the Donald A. Reed Plaza, the outdoor area where library patrons can go to read in nice weather or small groups can gather. It will be the quiet, no fuss way he would like to be remembered.

Campaign General Donors
as of April 29, 2009

Please verify that your donor information below is correct for use on future donor recognition. Contact Lori Lane at 717-234-4961 x 110 with any corrections or changes.

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