KANSAS CITY, Kan. — An art foundation in Kansas City, Kansas, is hoping the community’s generosity helps save the 100-year-old school building it operates out of.
Chuck Green, president of the L.M. Alcott Art Center Foundation, actually went to grade school in the Alcott building, back when it was still a school.
"Well, that's the thing about the building— it brings back memories,” he said.
Over the years, he and his neighbors watched the building fall in to disrepair as it sat mostly vacant.
Eventually, the group of neighbors was able to create a nonprofit to save it and began operating as an art foundation.
"At that point the light came on — we can be something that would be something to anyone and everyone,” he said describing his vision for the art foundation. “Express their feelings in a way that they're not getting you know just at home."
Building the art foundation on the bones of his old school saved the building, but it’d been 23 years, and the building is older still.
It needs saving again.
"We just haven't had the funds because over the years any money we've brought in, we've used for programming,” he said.
Love for the place and the community within it has held the building together, but that metaphor doesn’t stop leaky roofs or fix a broken boiler and many broken windows.
"The list is so large on what it needs, but what it can be is again a centerpiece for the community to build around,” Green said.
If fundraising goes well, it’ll stay a centerpiece for decades more.
You can donate by clicking this link.
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