Mount Prospect Refuses to Give Up on Saving The Central School!

by Gavin W. Kleespies

The Mount Prospect Historical Society is undertaking a big project for a small school. The organization, based in the suburban Chicago area, is working to pick up and move an 1896 one-room schoolhouse. The Central School has an immense importance to the local community. It was the first public school in Mount Prospect, IL, it was also the first home of the Public Library, The Volunteer Fire Department, The Woman’s Club, The Camp Fire Girls, and The Boy Scouts. It was also the site where the papers of incorporation for the village of Mount Prospect were signed, thereby creating the municipal government.

What the school represents to the community and the place one room schools hold in American history makes the campaign to save the building worthwhile. However, it will not save the building on its own.

Unfortunately, the Central School is in a precarious place. If it is not moved by February of 2008 it may be demolished. The building must be moved because it sits on the property of Saint John’s Episcopal Church, which would like to expand their facilities. The MPHS has found a new permanent site and has made great progress toward moving the building. However, the groups needs to raise the last $30,000 of a $200,000 project and the time given to move the building is nearly up. In February of 2008 the Historical Society will loose all claim to the building.

The story of the campaign to save this building is an interesting example of a small non-profit working with limited resources and thinking of new and creative ways to raise a large sum of money for a project that falls outside of most corporate giving policies and grant guidelines. The fact that an organization, with a staff of two, only one of which is full time, has been able to raise over $170,000 towards this project, while continuing to keep a museum open and run an independent non-profit is a testament to the support for one-room schools.

MPHS has worked to think of new and creative ways to approach the problem of raising funds for an unusual project and to widen the scope of this campaign outside of the boundaries of one town. With some success, the project has now grown to include over 600 donors in over 30 different communities and 10 different states.

Over the course of the past 4 years, MPHS sent two letters and three post cards to every address in Mount Prospect to create a community-wide awareness of the project. To refine the campaign, members worked with the data gathering company, Info USA, to compile a list of everyone in Mount Prospect who had an annual income over $200,000. The Historical Society then recruited volunteers to hand write letters to each of those households. They also sent hand written letters to a list of community leaders, former elected officials, including those who had moved away, and everyone whose home had ever been on the MPHS Housewalk, Garden walk and Home Renovation tour. In the end more than 300 handwritten letters were mailed, some of which were followed up with hand written notes.

By searching on-line directories, the Historical Society staff compiled a database of all the people listed in Illinois with the last names of the four founding families in Mount Prospect: Busse, Wille, Meyn and Moehling. Each of these families received a separate letter and a donation form which showed pictures of their ancestors and the Central School. Since the Busse and Wille families are most closely related to the school, we also sent a letter to all of them in Wisconsin, Indian, and Michigan.

To enhance the campaign outside Mount Prospect’s boarders, MPHS sent a letter to every Historical Society in the state of Illinois explaining the project and asking for support. While this may seem like a fool’s errand, it received a surprising number of donations and statements of support, certainly making it worthwhile. Volunteers and staff created a database of national celebrities and well known authors and then mail merged this database with a letter explaining the project and asking them to contribute  by signing a card with a picture of the Central School on it. This campaign had a really good response and the Historical Society collected signed cards from every one from Kiefer Sutherland to Bill Cosby and from David Sedaris to Dale Earnhardt Jr. These cards were then auctioned off to help the school.

Because much of this work relied on mining information available on the internet and a hallmark of the campaign was attention to design, it was only fitting that the Central School create its own web page: www.yourcentralschool.org . The Historical Society paid particular attention to making the web site look professional and eye catching. With history, activities and links to all the organizations associated with  the school it is an interesting site to explore! The press page offers an easy place for newspapers and reporters to find pictures of the school and promotional images, as well as a catalog of old press releases. With a link to PayPal, it is also possible to donate to the school on-line.

Through persistent work with members of the press, the Central School campaign has been featured on WGN radio, National Public Radio, and three other local radio stations. Articles on the school are at least a monthly occurrence in the three local papers, but have also appeared in the Chicago Tribune and the Daily Herald. The school was even featured on CNN on the Comcast Local Newsmakers section.

Through this media coverage, the schoolhouse project caught the eye of the staff at Landmarks Illinois and was named to their Chicago-land watch list of historically significant structures that are in danger of being lost. The Mount Prospect Historical Society worked with the municipal government to obtain a list of every business registered in Mount Prospect and sent letters asking for their financial support. To target larger regional businesses, MPHS researched larger businesses and put together customized informational packets which included a short DVD with an oral history program on explanation of project and a short oral history documentary talking about one-room schools. Personal phone calls followed up the mailing of the packets.

The Historical Society has applied for and won competitive grants. These have included everything from a small technology grant from AT&T to a preservation grant from Landmarks Illinois to a grant from the local municipal government to help with the cost of moving the utility lines.

Locally, the Historical Society has worked with many other groups. School children did extra chores around the house to raise money for the school; the Lions Club donated the funds from their farmers market. The Library, the Park District, the Rotary, Scout Groups, Questers, the Woman’s Club, the Junior Woman’s Club, and others contributed and worked on fundraising events. Leaving no stone unturned, The Mount Prospect Historical Society organized bake sales, worked at farmers markets, held skating parties, and sold Christmas ornaments. MPHS collected old school chairs and school desks and invited local celebrities and artists to decorate them. They displayed them around town and then auctioned them off.

While these programs worked, there were efforts that did not. One idea that seemed like it could work, was to contact all the companies that owned billboards near Mount Prospect and ask them to donate a billboard for a month as a part of their corporate giving policy and as a tax write off. While there were a number of responses from the regional offices and Clear Channel Communications considered the proposal, no billboard was ever actually offered. There was an attempt to pitch a story to a national magazine and possibly get picked up as a community interest story. Although releases were sent to close to 100 different magazines, from Martha Stewart Living to Newsweek, the story was never picked up. A few magazines did respond and the Central School was listed on the web pages of a couple architectural and city planning magazines, but there was never an actual print story.

There were also local projects that didn’t work out. The Historical Society and the Public Library hosted a talk by an archeologist on the interesting artifacts that can be found when excavating the sites of one-room schools, but this did not peak local interest and there was a very small turn out.

The Mount Prospect Historical Society has been creative in their outreach efforts and have proven successful on many fronts. Their campaign has certainly been a grassroots effort, with the vast majority of donations being under $100 and raising $170,000 through $20 checks takes some creativity.

With unlimited time the Mount Prospect Historical Society could attempt more innovative fundraising, but time is running out. Hopefully, the funds necessary to complete the project will be raised and the efforts highlighted above will not be in vain.