Lexington, KY - J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. announced that Lexington’s Living Arts & Science Center (LASC) has won a 2012 Chase Community Giving program award. One of 196 national winners, LASC will receive $10,000.
LASC Director Heather Lyons declared it "a wonderful contribution to our capital campaign." She added, "Chase has been a wonderful partner for the Living Arts & Science Center for the past four years through their sponsorship of our Science Explorer’s program in five elementary schools with high percentages of at-risk students."
Of this third attempt in the Chase competition Lyons said, "Our board and staff set the goal to make this our winning year. Everyone, along with some wonderful volunteers and support from the community, came together and did not let up."
LASC offers creative and educational classes and programs for children and adults, serving over 40,000 people annually in 36 different counties. The Center's budget is about $550,000.
"A lot of people don't know about everything we do," said Andrea Ooten, LASC's Development Director. "Besides classes we offer field trips and all day programs for the days school is out. We do outreach and work with children at risk, through social service agencies."
LASC's Fourth Street location puts it in proximity to the downtown business revival. That, in turn, has helped bring more people.
"For many years, people came to the LASC but really thought that it was off the beaten path. It is a lot of fun now, to see downtown moving our way." Lyons said. "We have many guests who live downtown and now walk and ride their bikes to the LASC."
The overall rebirth "is exciting and it makes our renovation and expansion plans all the more important as we have an increased base in downtown to use our facility, as well as guests we are serving in 36 Kentucky counties."
LASC's Fourth Street location puts it in proximity to the revival of Third Street and other downtown sections of new businesses. Ooten said that the LASC staff members expect to be involved with some of these downtown enterprises in the future.
"We can take that $10,000 and make a huge impact," Ooten said. "We're really excited. We'll use it for our new building."
The Chase award money couldn't have come at a better time because the Center is in the midst of a major capital campaign. Titled "Imagine This," the campaign's goal is to raise funds to renovate LASC's existing home, the historic Kincaid House, and to build an addition.
"The recession has definitely not made it easy to raise money," Ooten said.
Another setback to LASC's fundraising was the death of one of the organization's longest and most dedicated supporters, Gloria Singletary, the wife of former University of KY President Otis Singletary.
Mrs. Singletary painted, mowed the lawn, and did anything else she could to help LASC, especially in its early years of uncertain funding. She was serving as Honorary Chair of the capital campaign when she died.
"She was a real cheerleader for us," Ooten said. "When we lost her in February that hurt a lot."
Early this year the Center received a $1 million matching grant from the Lucille Little Foundation. So far the campaign has raised $360,000 of the required matching funds.
Ooten, who is waiting to hear from several grant applications, said, "We're hoping to have another $450,000 by the end of October. Then we'll ask private donors. Hopefully we can break ground in late spring or early summer next year."
When the work is finished LASC will have larger classrooms and more of them, an art gallery that can be open full time, a children's art gallery, a large multipurpose room, a full scale planetarium, and more.
Space for the Center's popular science exhibit "Discovery" will more than triple.
Plans include new roof top gardens. Food grown there can be prepared in the Teaching Kitchen, the site of future cooking classes.
"We have so many community gardens in our neighborhood," Ooten said. "With the new kitchen we can reach out and offer canning and other food preparation classes."
"We want to make the grounds more interesting, even if we're not open," Ooten said. "We'll move our entrance to Fourth Street and have more parking."
The process of selecting the winners of the grants began in June when Chase customers and employees nominated nearly 30,000 charities nationwide. Eligible charities had until August 30 to accept their nominations.
The competition for grants began on Facebook on September 6. For two weeks charities campaigned for online votes from their supporters and supporters' friends.
"We were lucky enough to get on the leader board after a few days," Ooten explained. "Then we really started pushing, reaching out to corporate partners and friends. We felt if we could get 100 to 200 votes each day we would stay on the leader board."
LASC Volunteer Coordinator Kristi Reynolds enlisted help from her troops. Staff members spent weekend time on their home computers to solicit votes from friends and groups to which they belonged. Their extra effort paid off.
What makes LASC's win especially noteworthy is that Chase changed the rules from previous years, allowing non-profits with budgets up to $10 million to enter. That meant that LASC had to compete against other charities which had much larger lists of friends and donors to solicit for votes.
This year's is the fifth installment of Chase Community Giving. Since 2009, the program has provided a share of $20 million to 500 charities in 41 states, Washington, D.C., and Puerto Rico. More than 3.8 million Facebook users have "liked" the Chase Community Giving page.
For more information about classes and events at the Living Arts & Science Center or to make a donation to its capital campaign see www.lasclex.org