DONATIONS HELP SCHOOL BUILDING PLANS ADVANCE

ADVANCE -- Raising money for a new school multipurpose room has been a luminous experience for Dennis Lorch, president of the Advance Public Schools Foundation.

From his office window, Lorch can see the 220 lights that thus far illuminate a "foundation tree" on the grounds of the Advance public schools. Each of the 250 lights on the tree, which resembles a Christmas tree, represents a $1,000 donation to the foundation.

The foundation was organized this year to help the school district with construction costs of a multipurpose room. The campaign slogan, chosen through a contest at the high school, is "Shaping Tomorrow By Building Today."

"We are proud of the support we have been given," Lorch said, adding that the nonprofit, fund-raising group has received donations ranging from $10 to $30,000. "It's Christmas -- and budgets get influenced -- but people have been generous."

Since October, the group has raised more than $220,000. "If I was counting today, we'd have $224,000 plus some change toward our goal," Lorch said. By year's end the group hopes to raise $250,000 to complete the 10,000-square-foot multipurpose room, which will be used for community events, school concerts, graduations and alumni activities.

The school board had planned to complete the room at the same time it finished construction of a building addition. But construction costs increased and the board voted to reduce the size of the room to 5,000 square feet.

Soon afterward, four people met to discuss the idea of a foundation to help raise money for the school. After a few organizational meetings, the group expanded to a nine-member board. Its first project was to raise the money needed to complete the room. So the group began seeking donations from school alumni.

"We had never gone to the alumni for fund raising, and thought this was a good time," Lorch said. The group sent letters to alumni from the 1920s to the last graduating class.

Since the tax base usually provides average results within a district, the group "thought we'd go outside the tax base and create an above average environment for education," Lorch said.

In only three months, the foundation members have raised $224,000 through pledges and donations. About $85,000 already has been deposited into an account, said treasurer Ruth Millington.

The donations have poured in from alumni and ex-teachers from Florida to California.

"We felt like it would be successful," she said. "That's why we went ahead. We were not sure we would get the goal met so soon."

With the way donations are coming in, Millington thinks the goal will be easily met by the end of the year. People who have pledged donations have agreed to add more to help meet the goal, Millington said.

The foundation has designed a plan to allow donations to be stretched over a three-year period for tax purposes. "They can divide it up the way they want to," Millington said.

While the multipurpose room project spurred the group into action, it will continue to support the public schools indefinitely.

"We decided to make this a perpetual thing," Millington said. "The money will be used for worthy improvements for the school. We have a good school but this will go beyond that."