EVANSVILLE — Keep Evansville Beautiful met its $54,000 fundraising goal for renovating the Garvin Park fountain Thursday night.
The goal was reached in part thanks to Jeff Bosse, the great-great-nephew of former Evansville Mayor Benjamin Bosse.
Bosse attended a dedication ceremony for the renovated fountain held at the Pub on Division Street because of his interest in his great-great-uncle and what he did for the community.
"This is a fountain in his honor that he gave to the city in 1915," Bosse said.
The Bosse family donated $2,000 toward the fountain restoration project, said Ann Ennis, director of Keep Evansville Beautiful.
Thursday evening's dedication including the turning on of its new, multicolored LED lights, added during an approximately two-and-a-half-year planning and renovation process.
The celebration also served as a fundraiser. Keep Evansville Beautiful was "a few thousand short" of its $54,000 goal for the project, Ennis said before the event. Donations received at the ceremony allowed the group to meet its goal, and funds above that total will go to the fountain's maintenance fund, she said.
Keep Evansville Beautiful is hoping to receive enough donations to increase the maintenance fund, which totaled approximately $18,000 before the event, to $25,000 by the end of the summer, Ennis said.
"The stories that we've heard and the fact that the money has just come in so easily" have been the most exciting parts of the project, Ennis said. "The whole thing has just been a great experience."
Local individual donors, businesses, organizations and trade unions donated time and manpower to the project, Ennis said.
Major donors included local Kiwanis clubs and the Evansville Park Foundation Inc., Evansville Urban Enterprise Association, the Bussing-Koch Foundation, Deaconess Hospital and the Courier & Press, among others.
The 2006 Leadership Evansville class designated the fountain as its community-service project, said Jack Pate, a class member and Courier & Press publisher.
Ennis lighted the fountain last night after well-wishers watched a video about the fountain's history.
"We did, as a community, turn this on," she said.
A more formal, traditional dedication ceremony will be held June 14, Ennis said.
The fountain light show is generally scheduled to run from dusk until 11 p.m. all summer and autumn. The light shows will run longer on the weekends, Ennis said.
The fountain was first restored by local Kiwanis clubs in 1936 and again in 1989, according to a Keep Evansville Beautiful statement.
"When I was a small child, they dedicated the fountain. I don't remember too much other than how pretty it was," said Jim Morgan, former president of the Northside Kiwanis Club, of the 1936 ceremony.
In the years to come, Morgan worked to keep the fountain pretty. He helped the North Side group raise money to update it before its second rededication ceremony in 1989 and worked with the club and Jacobsville Neighborhood Improvement Association to raise money for the fountain's latest improvements.
Updates to the 86-year-old fountain included rewiring its electrical circuits, repairing its walls and gates, adding a changing LED-light show and renewing the surrounding landscaping.
"The best part of this project is the community coming together as one and revitalizing this treasure of our community," said Dan Schall, director of the Department of Parks and Recreation. "It's nice to be able to maintain what was developed many years ago.
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