Press release from Folkmoot:
The Campaign for Folkmoot, while beginning quietly, will soon launch in a formal and big way: raising $1.2 million for Folkmoot Friendship Center as well as year-round programs and the ever-popular summer festival, Folkmoot USA!
Think you know Folkmoot? You haven’t seen anything yet!
With a campaign team headed by Joe Sam Queen and Tom Ezell, the effort is leading the way to a bright, new Folkmoot which will see a growing calendar of year-round events, workshops, community gatherings as Folkmoot transforms into a center for connecting cultures around the world – including our own unique mountain culture – while advancing peace and understanding through international artistic and economic engagement.
And, of course, there will always be the colorful beauty and pageantry of the annual Folkmoot USA Festival each summer.
The major projects to funded by the Campaign for Folkmoot will be a $400,000 renovation to the Folkmoot Friendship Center, a historic Hazelwood school at 112 Virginia Street, including the building’s roof, heating and cooling systems and reconstruction of the building’s auditorium into a performance hall and reconstruction of the building cafeteria as a commercial kitchen and event space.
Another $600,000 from the campaign will be earmarked for an endowment to ensure Folkmoot festival continues to flourish for generations come.
And $200,000 will be designated for year-round programs of entertain, education and cultural exchange.
The Town of Waynesville agreed in February to boost the campaign with $25,000. And plans are being completed for a huge community May Day celebration, May 2, to formally kick off the campaign and Folkmoot’s renewed and reinvigorated initiatives.
Information about the Campaign for Folkmoot – or, most importantly, to donate – email info@folkmoot.org or call +1 (828) 452-2997 or visit our online contact form.
“During 2013-14, Folkmoot accomplished ground work on developing its campaign which involved a feasibility study, developing a draft case statement and made ‘silent’ phase funding requests to founding and current Folkmoot board members and other leaders,” said Rose Johnson, chair of the Folkmoot Board of Trustees. “In November 2014, the Folkmoot board formally named Joe Sam Queen and Tom Ezell as the co-chairs for The Campaign for Folkmoot.
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