A group planning to build a children’s play museum in Wilton got a $150,000 challenge grant that will go toward its $750,000 fundraising goal and hopes the pledge will spark additional donations.

The pledge from the Sandy River Charitable Foundation must be matched by $350,000 in donations from other sources to the Western Maine Play Museum, according to Lori Lewis, vice president of the museum board.

The children’s play museum is being proposed by a group of volunteers who want to create a nonprofit museum on Main Street with games and exhibits that encourage learning while playing. Their goal is to open the museum this year.

A range of residents and organizations have so far chipped in on the effort. A 100-year-old home was donated for the space, a Foster Tech student helped design the logo and Upright Frameworks offered to do the renovation at cost.

The Shibles and the Colley families from Wilton are sponsoring the Train Room with a $25,000 donation. An elderly woman — who the museum volunteers said was beaming — gave board members two crumpled $5 bills to go toward the effort.

Wilton officials have said they hope the proposed museum in the heart of downtown Wilton would be part of a new, positive direction for the downtown.

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The group proposing the museum has so far raised $90,000 in pledges, dwarfing other fundraising efforts in the rural community of 4,100, but the musuem is still short of its final goal.

“Cabin fever and freezing temperatures make many of us eager for neighborhood indoor entertainment options for our young children,” said Lewis. “The Western Maine Play Museum is hoping to provide such a venue for area children by this time next winter, but they need your support now to ensure their vision will become a reality.”

In order to match the donation from the Bill and Irene Berry family through their foundation, the museum is seeking 10,000 families in western Maine to make a one-time donation of $25.

“(The museum) has received encouraging support from some major donors. However, the families of average means are perhaps the most critical factor in the museum’s success,” said Lewis.

Lewis said based on recent Census data, there are about 7,500 families in Franklin County, 15,000 in Oxford County, 14,000 families in Somerset County and 27,000 families in Androscoggin County for a total of more than 63,000 families.

“If only a small percentage of these working families make a one-time donation of $25 — more if they can afford it — the $250,000 the museum hopes to raise with this appeal would allow them to begin reconstruction work on their building,” she said.

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Out of the total $750,000 organizers are trying to raise, $500,000 would be used to renovate the 4,500-square-foot building to meet commercial building code standards and make it compliant with Americans with Disabilities Act standards. A local contractor has offered to perform the work on the building that formerly housed a medical practice at cost.

Another $200,000 is needed for exhibits and furnishings and $50,000 to create outdoor green space.

The board’s president, Angela McLeod, previously came to a Wilton select board meeting to tell the town government that the museum does not intend to solicit town money for the project.

Kaitlin Schroeder — 861-9252

kschroeder@centralmaine.com

 


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