Maine Winter Sports Center raises over $355,000 in nine weeks

    CARIBOU, Maine — Officials with the Libra Foundation announced in early February they were ending their funding to the Maine Winter Sports Center, putting the future of MWSC at risk. Presque Isle native, Mary Barton Smith, who has shown great generosity toward her hometown, offered the MWSC a $100,000 gift and a separate $400,000 matching gift to help create a new future for the Center.
With Libra’s funding set to end on April 30, which was the end of the MWSC fiscal year, the 30th was also chosen as the deadline for the matching gift. However, many conversations are still ongoing to reach the full $400,000 and Smith has agreed to extend deadline to September 1 to allow those discussions to play themselves out.
“We needed to know what our funding was going to be in order to plan for the upcoming season,” said Andy Shepard, president and CEO of the MWSC. “Thanks to the remarkable generosity of Mary and the people of Maine, including a sizable donation from Fort Kent native, Phyllis Jalbert, we are in a position to start the season with confidence. We have raised over $355,000 toward our $400,000 goal, which is remarkable progress, but it is clear that there has not been enough time for many Maine companies and foundations that would like to help to do so. The accelerated schedule didn’t allow their process to play itself out by the 30th and Mary has offered to extend the deadline to allow that to happen.”
In total, the MWSC has generated over $1,115,000 in funding for this coming year: $100,000 gift from Mary Barton Smith; $355,000 MWSC fundraising; $355,000 Mary Barton Smith matching funding; $250,000 long-term sponsorships; and $55,000 Gear lease revenue.
“We are excited and humbled to have made so much progress over such a short period of time,” said Shepard. “The gift from Phyllis Jalbert, who has been exceptionally generous over the years to the MWSC, gave us the total funding we needed to operate for the full year and that is a significant milestone for us. In order to reach our long-term financing goals, we still need to take full advantage of Mary’s $400,000 matching gift and we will continue working on that until we have done so.”
The fund-raising effort to-date has included over 330 donors from 65 towns across Maine, 17 other states, as well as Quebec, New Brunswick and the Netherlands. Now that the funding is secured to complete the 2014/15 season, the focus will shift to the long-term sustainability of the company, which will include increasing sponsorship revenue, foundation support and the creation of an endowment. Those interested in giving a tax-deductible gift can go to www.mainewsc.org.