By Julia Bayly
Bangor Daily News Staff Writer
CARIBOU — After 15 years, the Libra Foundation is ending its financial relationship with the Maine Winter Sports Center, including its two world class Nordic ski venues in Presque Isle and Fort Kent, as of April 1. With contributions set to end at the close of the current fiscal year, MWSC officials are turning their immediate focus to fundraising.
The Libra Foundation’s contribution of about $550,000 each year represents nearly two-thirds of the center’s $885,000 annual budget. MWSC President Andy Shepard said that means to keep the center operational through the next fiscal year, he now will have to raise more than half a million dollars to supplement existing private and corporate financial support.
“We have in our favor that Maine Winter Sports over the last 15 years has developed a strong reputation across the globe and certainly in Maine,” Shepard said.
Founded in 1999, Maine Winter Sports, with headquarters in Caribou, received construction capital and startup funds from the Libra Foundation.
Since then, the philanthropic organization based in Portland has contributed close to $34 million to the Maine Winter Sports Center, according to Craig Denekas, Libra Foundation president.
Denekas said Feb. 4 the funding shut-off has nothing to do with any dissatisfaction his foundation has with the ski program.
“I would say we have been hugely pleased and the program is a tremendous success,” Denekas said. “The folks in [Aroostook] County where our two venues are located have worked extraordinarily hard and continue to do great work.”
Both the Nordic Heritage Center in Presque Isle and the 10th Mountain Center in Fort Kent have hosted international and national competitions. Both venues also are poised to become official Olympic training sites and later this month Presque Isle is hosting the 2014 IBU Youth/Jr. Biathlon World Championships.
Shepard also noted the center’s Healthy Hometowns programs, which currently are promoting outdoor activities for youths in 140 Maine communities.
It was never the intent for the Libra Foundation to fund the Maine Winter Sport Center indefinitely, according to Denekas.
“This is simply a matter of the evolution of how these things work,” he said. “It is time for the program to stand on its own.”
While concerned about the upcoming lack of funding, Maine Winter Sports Center’s board chairman Brian Hamel said that if not for the 15 years of solid financial support from the Libra Foundation, the program would not be where it is today.
“We are very appreciative for all that Libra has done in the past,” Hamel said Tuesday afternoon. “Now it is our job to create a long-term, sustainable model to carry us into the future.”
Shepard said he knew all along that the Libra Foundation would at some point stop funding Maine Winter Sports, so the move did not come as a total surprise.
Shepard and Denekas did say negotiations are ongoing surrounding any future funding involvement by the Libra Foundation with Maine Winter Sports.
Hamel said he hopes that Libra will agree to provide $50,000 annually to each of the training facilities in Fort Kent and Presque Isle.
“The venues are the critical core [of Maine Winter Sports] and those are physical facilities that most certainly we can structure to continue as hubs of activity,” Denekas said. “That is something we are prepared to make sure happens.”
Other options include a possible consolidation of Maine Winter Sports and the United States Biathlon Association — currently based in New Gloucester — or a cooperative agreement with the United States Ski Association.
“In many ways the Maine Winter Sports Programs have become essentially development programs for the USBA,” Denekas said. “So one has to ask oneself, should it not just become a part of it?”
Shepard, meanwhile, is devoting his time and energy — and that of his staff — to the short-term goal of raising the needed $550,000 to keep the programs running through next year.
“We believe the work of the Maine Winter Sports Center has been important to Maine and if the people of Maine believe that, now is the time to step up,” he said.
“Maine Winter Sports Center has been a great success and change is never easy,” Denekas said. “The question now is how to keep it healthy for the next 10 to 15 years.”
