One year after their first season in 1976, Birch Creek's co-founders James and Frances Dutton bought a forty-acre farm across the road from their home in rural Egg Harbor, Wisconsin, and began the process of creating a summer music performance school. Their vision was to ensure a high quality performance education for talented young musicians 12-19 by having them study with (and perform alongside) professionals in the music industry.
These things came to pass: the school, the professional faculty, the talented students, the campus, the experienced staff, the volunteers, and the distinctly jazz, world percussion, and classical music that form the core of Birch Creek's repertoire. We continue to perform in the magnificent barn, which the Duttons, working closely with local artisans, designed to be Birch Creek's permanent performance hall. And we continue our founders' dialogue with students, their teachers, and audiences in Egg Harbor, across Wisconsin, and throughout the country.
The school is thriving; the volunteers, faculty members, and staff amid our musical community are thriving. Over the last three decades we continue to increase our standards, our audiences, our commitment to music education, and our reputation for excellence. We have become one of northeastern Wisconsin's major cultural institutions, committed to safeguarding our past and building our future.
As we enter our fourth decade, we are operating at full capacity. Approximately 200 students will enroll each summer and be taught by nearly 100 faculty members. Birch Creek needs to add essential rehearsal space, improve instrument storage space, introduce small ensemble environs, add student and faculty sleeping rooms, and expand maintenance/storage areas. To meet these needs, we have embarked on a Capital Campaign that will add three new buildings to our existing twelve-building, forty-acre campus. The new buildings will directly address our student and faculty needs during the summer, and provide Birch Creek with four-season facilities in which we can extend 'shoulder season' activities in our local community. While not seeking to grow our summer student and faculty numbers significantly, we hope to develop year-round activities that utilize the talents of our summer faculty members, provide new opportunities for our loyal donors/volunteers while attracting new supporters, and provide off-season opportunities for organizations in our community.
Birch Creek's Capital Campaign, Perfect Pitch, has a goal of $3 million. In the months from May 2006 to June 2007, our Board, staff, and volunteer solicitors have quietly raised more than $1.5 million and expect to raise the remainder during the campaign's 18-month public phase, for a fund-raising total of $3 million by December 2008. We plan to break ground in September 2007 and construction will be completed by late May 2008 in time for the arrival of 2008 faculty and students.
Birch Creek leaders view the Capital Campaign as a challenge to grow the number of year-round residents (including county leaders and prospective donors) who are familiar with our programs, successes, and concerts. Already, the Capital Campaign has caused us to reinforce the importance of Board participation and volunteer involvement in face-to-face donor solicitation. We will seek to shift the focus of the Board's fundraising activities on larger gifts ($1,000 or more), and have begun by setting goals for Board Gifts.
We feel challenged to understand the needs of area public school music programs, and support them by making our new facilities available for concerts and workshops during the school year. And, we seek to better understand our existing donor base, provide meaningful rewards, retain donors, and help donors understand the importance of their place in the Birch Creek family. Our strategy will also include the development of a more outcome-specific approach to how we solicit parents of Birch Creek students, and a more direct approach to how we solicit local businesses. Thus, Birch Creek's Capital Campaign will ensure that we will remain a major force for music education and cultural enrichment locally, regionally, and nation-wide.