The South Arkansas Arts Center launched its first capital campaign in more than two decades Thursday evening, when Executive Director Laura Allen, campaign chair Beth Burns, project architect Michael Rogers, architect and SAAC Board of Directors member Richard Wharton and SAAC Board architectural consultant Elbert Godwin officially announced the "Reaching Higher" fundraising drive and expansion project.
"We're very excited, but we also just feel like it is so necessary and it is so important for the future of the center and for serving the community that we also feel a sense of relief about it, because it is about more than just making the center nicer; it's also making the center work better," Allen said on Friday.
'Reaching Higher'
A nonprofit, SAAC is a visual and performing arts center working to promote and support ideas and forms of artistic expression. The arts center offers dance, theater, music, design and visual arts classes; produces plays and musicals regularly; has several galleries showcasing artwork by local, regional and national artists; and fosters appreciation for the arts through its educational and hands-on programming.
More than a year in the making, the Reaching Higher campaign encompasses several goals for SAAC: expanding accessibility, increasing safety and security, broadening opportunities for collaboration and updating aesthetics to highlight the nonprofit's role as a cultural hub in the region.
"It has been a privilege to work alongside a local organization with such a rich history in El Dorado. Through this project, the South Arkansas Arts Center will be able to better and further provide an essential need in serving our community through the arts," Rogers said in a press release. "This building addition not only provides better accessibility to all areas of the existing facility, it also expands those resources in order to provide more opportunities to those it serves."
The expansion will cost an estimated $1.9 million, $300,000 of which will be covered by SAAC's general operating funds. On Thursday, the Murphy Family Foundation and Murphy USA Charitable Foundation announced gifts of $300,000 each -- $600,000 altogether -- to help kick start the campaign.
"We are excited that the South Arkansas Arts Center is embarking on this campaign to expand the amazing work they are doing in our community to further the arts," said Andrew Clyde, president of the Murphy USA Charitable Foundation, in a press release. "We know this gift will allow SAAC to continue to grow and encourage the community to join us in helping the South Arkansas Arts Center 'Reach Higher.'"
Additional donations leave SAAC with an additional $500,000 they hope to raise from the community, Allen said.
"We need everyone. SAAC is a place for everyone and we need everyone," she said. "No amount of money will make too small a difference, because everyone is going to be able to enjoy it when it's done."
The project will include both renovations and additions to the SAAC facility. The building's main entrance will be reconstructed to improve accessibility and security, and a check-in station will be built at the front door to help monitor SAAC guests.
Classrooms and other educational spaces will be consolidated on the second floor of the facility, which will also be accessible for people of any age or mobility thanks to the addition of an elevator. Allen said a new classroom will be added upstairs and one of the classrooms will have windows installed.
"All the classes will be upstairs; they can come check in, go up the elevator or up the stairs and they'll all be in classes in the same kind of zone," she said.
Universally-accessible restrooms will also be added.
"We have a very sturdy building and we have a very functional building, but it is very large and a lot of it is on the second floor, and over the years, it has become clear to us that while everyone can come in and enjoy it, but they're not all having the same experience," Allen explained. "We want to make the whole center accessible, regardless of age or mobility."
She gave the example of a class comprised of people with Parkinson's that had to be moved downstairs into the arts center's gallery spaces to accommodate students as illustration of the need to improve accessibility.
"We have students in wheelchairs, of all ages, old and young, and we want them to all be able to have a really great experience and the same experience," she said.
Additional safety features, including regulation entrances and exits, stairways and a fire suppression system will be added.
A commercial catering kitchen will also be built inside the facility, expanding SAAC's ability to host events and create new partnerships, Allen said.
The new and old facets of the SAAC building will come together with the help of a new façade that will be designed to blend with the building as it currently stands and the new entrance. A balcony dedicated to Wharton will overlook the main, western entrance from the second floor.
"A lot of times people will come in and say 'I didn't know what this building was,' or 'I didn't know where you were,' because it is not a particularly welcoming building, and that's something the arts center Board of Directors has been talking about since 1964. It's not a new problem," Allen said. "We want it to look as nice and welcoming on the outside as it is on the inside."
The SAAC building was originally an armory, she explained, and over the years has been added to.
"It's been renovated lots of times in little ways," she said. "Pieces have been added onto it, like the lobby gallery, the Price and Merkle galleries, the offices, the scene shop."
The full architectural plans for the Reaching Higher expansion are available to view at SAAC, and Allen said she welcomes anyone to come by and see them.
"I love to talk about them," she said.
Those who wish to contribute to the Reaching Higher campaign can do so in several ways: visiting saac-arts.org and clicking the Reaching Higher button to donate online; stopping by SAAC, 110 E. 5th St. Monday through Friday between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m.; or by contacting a member of the capital campaign committee or Board of Directors.
Capital campaign committee members include ex-officio members Allen; Assistant Executive Director John Lowery; Board chair Paul Burns; facilities committee chair Crystal Willis; and Rudy Bright, Tim Butler, Paul Choate, Lynn Dwight, George Maguire, Margy Niel, Molly Shepherd, Drew Sheppard, Ann Trimble, Wharton, Elizabeth Young and Beth Burns, chair.
The SAAC Board of Directors is comprised of Burns, Allen, Willis, Courtney Crotty, Stephanie Tulley-Dartez, Pete Atkinson, Gay Bechtelheimer, Alex Bennett, Joanna Benson, Caroline Callaway, Benton Garrison, Vicki Lambert, Kim Newman, Chrystal Osborn, Jennifer Stone, Bentley Wallace, Wharton, theatre committee chair Jacob George and visual arts committee chair Susan Barnes.
"Through the generosity of key donors, the committee has raised almost $1.4 million," Burns said in a press release. "We are asking the community to provide the final push to meet the goal."
The campaign is structured to accept gifts of any size, tailored to the giver's schedule.
Allen said SAAC won't close during the renovation process, though they "may have to get creative with entrances." And once the fundraising and construction is done, she hopes the project has a lasting impact.
"I hope that we'll continue to maintain SAAC's place s a community center for the arts and I hope it will mean we can have more classes for more students from more walks of life," Allen said.