We are incredibly thrilled and grateful to share with you – a friend of ESSA – extraordinary news of a major named legacy endowment to benefit the school. This is an exceptional and transformative investment by a partner who has long believed in the magic of the ESSA experience and we are so very excited to share this news with those who have made ESSA what it is today.
The Windgate Foundation has established an endowment at the Arkansas Community Foundation to provide ongoing operating support for ESSA – an amazing, sustaining gift for YOUR art and craft school!
ESSA was founded by local artists and craftspeople (including Doug Stowe, Mary Springer and Eleanor Lux) to serve as a resource to Eureka Springs, Carroll County and the surrounding region for art and craft education and creative experiences. Our founders, as the cornerstone of ESSA, established this school to carry forward the legacy of all those from whom they learned, and now this new legacy endowment will ensure that the chain is carried forward.
This would never have happened without you. All of you who have been a part of ESSA over the past 22 years have left your mark on the school and have made it what it is today.
This gift further solidifies the reputation of Eureka Springs as an arts destination and brings attention to what our community and region have to offer. We are proud to enhance the reputation of Northwest Arkansas as an art–and artists’–mecca…not just a nationally recognized destination for viewing and experiencing great art but also for making it.
This gift benefits our entire community!
With this support, we look forward to bringing even more free and subsidized programming to our local area for families, military veterans and area residents. Improved financial security will allow ESSA to benefit area non-profits through expanded partnerships and active and supportive participation in the non-profit space. ESSA will have the financial footing to attract even more great talent for instruction and artist residencies to enrich our students and community. This financial foundation stabilizes the employment opportunities provided by ESSA and assuring ongoing employment for ESSA employees. And, this financial support allows ESSA to continue to provide discounted workshop tuition to local residents.
Another of the many blessings of this support is that ESSA can now shift its stance to a longer-term perspective and focus future fundraising on scholarships and campus development. Ongoing fundraising efforts will be essential to raise scholarship funds and to build and equip additional studios and facilities to create ever more wonderful experiences and opportunities in art and craft. Focused fundraising for scholarships and facilities will lead to greater scholarship opportunities for all who can benefit from financial assistance and an improved workshop experience for them when they arrive on campus.
We hope that you will continue to walk with us along this incredible path.
Over these cold winter months, when we are all dealing with unprecedented challenges, I also hope that you will take some time for inspiration and connection by taking an online workshop or participating in a session during our Artist Talk series. Keep scrolling for more on these opportunities to spark your creative joy, as well as a video highlighting our beautiful campus and announcing the Windgate Endowment for the Eureka Springs School of the Arts.
Thank you for helping ESSA to become what it is today. We are so grateful to you and to the Windgate Foundation as we look to a brilliant future of fostering art and craft for generations to come!
Watch our new video for beautiful images from the ESSA campus – from the ground and from the air! – and more information about the Windgate Foundation Endowment for the Eureka Springs School of the Arts.
In gratitude,
Kelly McDonough
Executive Director
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[…] More than anything else, this is an arts and education funder. It has made headlines in the past with multi-million dollar local grants, such as the $15.5 million gift to the University of Arkansas at Fort Smith for its visual arts facility, and $10 million to create an endowment that will provide ongoing operating support for the Eureka Springs School of Art. […]