We DID IT! $100,000 in two months!
(12:30 PM 12/30/20) Every time we have asked for your help you have come through! We are amazed and we are grateful. And we know why you do it: You do it because, like us, you know that a place to call home for the arts in Sharon Springs is something we all need — now more than ever.
So, thanks to all of you, we will move into 2021 ready to begin work on the “new” Klinkhart Hall. Like the original Opera House, it will be a place for all of us, a place “where art and community meet.”
Thank you, and thank you again — Happy New Year!
Didn’t have a chance to donate yet? You still can!
There are many reasons to support the Klinkhart Hall Restoration project, and there are just as many reasons to support the arts in a rural, upstate community.
“The preservation and rehabilitation of the historic Klinkhart Hall building as the physical home for the already thriving KHAC arts and cultural programming will directly contribute to the growing vibrancy and economic activity of the village historic district. It will add a cultural hub to the village, improve the streetscape of the historic district, directly support other revitalization efforts, and it will further enhance the appeal of the village as a tourist destination. Currently, there is no similar facility in this under-served and economically disadvantaged area.“
from the grant application to National Grid’s Main Street Revitalization Program
Klinkhart Hall circa 1885 
“new” Klinkhart Hall — coming soon!
It’s easy to “make the case” for a renewed and revitalized Klinkhart Hall; it’s not so easy to put together the support needed to make the “case” into a “project.” But with the support of our communities — Sharon Springs and all those surrounding — not only has the case been made, but the project is on a sound footing. The year 2020 was difficult and trying for us all. We all know people who were affected directly and indirectly by the pandemic. Our state and our nation seemed overwhelmed and it was sometimes difficult to know where to turn or what to do.
At Klinkhart, events were canceled, work was delayed — again and again — and fundraising seemed impossible. And yet, we continued to hear from people who told us to persist. We did, and they responded in kind, helping us raise more than double our previous end-of-year fundraising. Thanks to this extraordinary effort, we are now ready — finally — to begin work in 2021!
So now, at the end of this dark and trying year, let’s not only celebrate the return of the Sun with the Winter Solstice but let’s be hopeful for a new and brighter and busier year ahead. And let’s be grateful for all of those among us who believe that the arts matter, and who have worked to make a “new” Klinkhart Hall happen!