Powerhouse Needs Help to Win Funding to Transform Garage

The Yoknapatawpha Arts Council and the Powerhouse Community Arts Center are gearing up for one of their largest long-term projects and their biggest fundraising campaigns ever.

After years of wishing they could convert the 2,500-square-foot garage space outside the Powerhouse into usable classrooms, studios, and rehearsal spaces, the YAC has been chosen as one of 90 participants in a nationwide promotion featured on Crowdraise.com.

This campaign, Rise to Thrive, is sponsored by Russell Simmons of Def Jam Records. It provides small, innovative nonprofit organizations the opportunity to raise crowd sourced funding with challenges and bonus cash prizes along the way. Ultimately the organization which receives the most funding from their crowd sourcing will receive additional funding of up to $25,000.

“We could win up to $25,000 in bonus funding for our renovation project,” says Wayne Andrews, YAC director, “but we have a few challenges to reach first, so we are reaching out to our community for help.”

The first challenge that must be met by the YAC is to garner 75 individual donations to its Crowdraise.com site, Crowdraise.com/YACArts. These donations can be for as little as $1 and will qualify them to go on to the next round.

“Of course, if you want to give more,” says Andrews, “that will help us with the final challenge, but this first one is about single, individual donors.”

To make a donation, visit Crowdraise.com/YACArts and complete the donation check out. All donations must be made online.

For this contest, individual donations are determined by the mailing address used at the donation check out.