The Kechi Arts Council is mounting a campaign to raise $83,333 to save the city’s almost 100-year-old Kechi Playhouse building, and it wants your help.
The nearly 100-year-old building is structurally sound, but it needs work on its exterior, particularly a brick veneer wall on the west side that’s peeling away. The building’s eaves and roof also need to be replaced, and its yellow-tinted windows need to be reworked, said Misty Maynard, owner of the building and director of its plays.
“I think that the earthquakes we’ve had have not been good on the poor old thing,” Maynard said. The city of Kechi first approached Maynard in March about fixing the building, and through the Kechi Arts Council, it helped kickstart the fundraising campaign to help Maynard qualify for up to $250,000 in a community development block grant from the Kansas Department of Commerce. The grant matches each dollar raised by the campaign in triplicate, meaning that if the campaign can raise the $83,333, the grant will pay out $250,000.
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