Ashland Daily Independent

A $3.2 million goal certainly is an ambitious one for any capital campaign, but when $2.3 million of that sum already has been raised by the time the campaign officially is launched, reaching - or even surpassing - that goal no longer seems quite so difficult.

Before officially announcing its $3.2 million capital improvement campaign more than a week ago, Ashland Community and Technical College already had received nearly $2.3 million in donations and pledges from faculty, staff and major donors. That makes raising the remaining $900,000 much easier, said Guy Spriggs. who is co-chairing the campaign with Pat Goodpaster, widow of the late Bob Goodpaster, ACTC's first director.

"Nobody likes to be first in line," Spriggs said, adding that the success of the early campaign assures new donors that they are giving to a viable project with an achievable goal.

The money will be used to construct a child care center across the street from the Ashland campus on College Drive, endow several faculty chairs, create a workplace literacy program to increase access to job training and support a science and technology fair for students from kindergarten through high school.

The college already has a child care center on its Ashland campus, but it is in converted classrooms that are needed to handle the school's growing enrollment. Many of the school's current students are "nontraditional" students with young children. The easy accessibility to a quality day care center makes it possible for them to attend college.

Beyond the child care center, we also like the idea of an annual science and technology fair. Some area schools now have science fairs, but having the college take a more active role in sponsoring a fair will improve both the number of participants and the quality of the exhibits at such fairs.

Spriggs is confident the campaign can reach its goal by early fall. If that happens, work on the child care center could start before the end of the year.

A fast start is the hope of any fundraising campaign, and you can't get much faster than having raised more than two-thirds of your goal by the time the campaign kicks off. For a two-year college that for many years did little fundraising, this is a most impressive start.