Philanthropy Today
Philanthropy Today
Flint Hills Discovery Center on the GMCF Community Hour Episode - 193
Leslie White, Director of the Flint Hills Discovery Center Foundation, shares her passion for supporting the Discovery Center through fundraising for exhibits, educational programs, and community events while making learning accessible to everyone in the region.
• The annual Friend of the Flint Hills award will honor Carl and Mary Ice on April 11th for their contributions to protecting the Flint Hills ecosystem
• This year marks the final Symphony in the Flint Hills event on June 14th, which White describes as "a truly remarkable experience" worth attending
• The Foundation is developing an outdoor classroom with all-weather shade structures, informational panels, and prairie landscaping expected to open by fall 2026
• Community tax credits are available for donations of $250+ toward the outdoor classroom project
• The "Stepping into the Prairie" immersive exhibit showcases all four seasons and was developed with grant funding from Kansas Tourism and Commerce
• The Discovery Center offers engaging experiences for all ages, from young children to grandparents
• Grow Green Match Day donations support the youth education endowment fund
Visit flinthillsdiscovery.org for information about events and donation opportunities.
Philanthropy Today is brought to you by the Greater Manhattan Community Foundation. In this episode we feature a recently broadcast segment of the GMCF Community Hour as heard on NewsRadio KMAN. Back with the GMCF Community Hour here on NewsRadio KMAN. It's St Patrick's Day. She's got green on too. She is Leslie White and Leslie is the director of the flint hills discovery centers foundation.
Speaker 2:good morning, welcome back thank you, thanks, do you? Have like the coolest gig I really do, I really really love my job uh-huh it's great I get to meet so many new people.
Speaker 2:um, every day is a new day and we get to. Just this week especially is a really fun week. Um, meet the makers will be happening at the discovery center. So, um, there'll be a new artist in the discovery center every week, or every day, sorry, um, so that's fun. You know, all the kids will be in the atrium seeing what they're doing and that's really fun.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so what is it you do?
Speaker 2:Well, you know, my main focus is to help the Discovery Center. So of course that means money, and so I try to raise money for either the projects that they need, the exhibits, and then we hold a couple events each year to help support them, mainly for educational purposes, whether that is through different projects but or just education in itself. So a lot of times we try to. You know they create new programs, new activities, new things along those lines. So we have an education endowment actually here with GMCF that can offset those expenses so that it doesn't just come through, you know, city funding. It can come through the foundation, which is really nice, so we can offer those at a lower cost or free to the public for new ideas.
Speaker 1:Now, you had said that you have a couple of events a year and one of those key events is coming up here in a couple of events a year and one of those key events is coming up here in a couple of weeks. Absolutely yeah, three weeks.
Speaker 2:Yes, so, um April 11th, um at six 30, we will be honoring our friend of the Flint Hills. So we do this every year, um, and this year we are going to honor Carl and Mary ice, and so if you know that name, you know that they do a lot for not only Manhattan but for the whole Flint Hills region. They are active in several organizations that go directly off of the mission that we hold, which is protecting the whole Flint Hills region, and so Symphony Nature Conservancy. And then Mary actually just joined our board this year, which we started this process last year, and she came on our board. So, but they they believe in conserving the ecosystem and we want to honor them for that.
Speaker 1:So you know you had talked about the symphony and you know it's been said that this is the last year I know Mary is a part of that board.
Speaker 2:I think she's the director or the chair this year.
Speaker 1:And that could not have been an easy decision to come to, because that's a that's been a fun deal. I got an MC that a couple of times and that was just. You know, that's that. That was a fun opportunity for me and it's a neat, neat event.
Speaker 2:Yes, I definitely encourage anybody who hasn't been to get your tickets. I know the event, I believe, is June 14th and it is truly a unique experience. If you have not been, buy your tickets, even general admission tickets, it is truly a remarkable experience To be able to go, especially since it is the last year. I know Symphony will turn around and create something and they'll make a new something.
Speaker 2:I don't know what that will be, but I know that they'll create something. But make sure if you can attend this year everybody, I think, should experience one time yeah absolutely, and I think it's symphonyintheflinthillsorg. Yes.
Speaker 1:Where you can find out more about those tickets.
Speaker 2:Yes, and I know the Discovery Center and the Foundation have both shared where to get tickets, so you can even go directly to our page. We support them and their mission as well, so if you can't remember their tickets, you can go online to our website to help get their tickets.
Speaker 1:Simple enough, yeah, simple enough. Well, this is a, you know, a fun opportunity. Give us some details about how people can attend your friend of the Flint Hills. Yeah so friend of the discovery center friend of Flint Hills. Flint Hills. Okay, all right, I didn't have my notes open because I was going to the symphony website.
Speaker 2:That's okay, yeah.
Speaker 1:So I surf a lot while I'm on there, I totally understand. I check my email, I check my Facebook page.
Speaker 2:So if you want to attend and help us recognize Carl and Mary, the best way the website is kind of long, so the best way is to either go to my Facebook page or the discovery centers website and there's links directly there. If you don't want to do it online, we have cards at the front desk at the Discovery Center or you can call my direct line at the Discovery Center and we are happy to get you registered for the event to attend. Again, it is April 11th at 630 at the Discovery Center.
Speaker 1:Now we have a number of things that have happened with the Discovery Center. You have a new director who's not so new to the Discovery Center, but Stephen Bridenstine, and Stephen's been on here before a number of times, and what a great hire, what a great hire, and that's one that you know. I think the community, once they've gotten to know Stephen, can really embrace the idea that he's taken that role.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. He's very personable. He has big ambitions and we love that. You know, creating new things and new ideas is what makes the Discovery Center so great and he is full of them, and so that makes him really fun to work with is because he's always bringing new ideas is what makes the Discovery Center so great and he is full of them, and so that makes him really fun to work with is because he's always bringing new ideas to the table.
Speaker 1:So I think that what made me happy to be this announcement, it's just that you know, stephen is one of these really good people man.
Speaker 2:Absolutely, he really is.
Speaker 1:He's just a very genuine person, and we haven't really had a chance to say. But Susan Adams was wonderful as well, and and uh, you know we're happy for her and her new role is retired as grandma. That seems to be infectious with people that get those grandkids, you know.
Speaker 2:Yeah, she's loving it. Um, we all stay in touch with her and we're we're excited for her, but we do miss her.
Speaker 1:What other projects you working on.
Speaker 2:So the foundation is helping right now with our outdoor classroom renovation projects. So this has been kind of in the works for the last I would say not fully a year yet, but we are moving forward with it. It will go to the city now for approval and so forth so you'll start to see it take shape and designers will start coming on board and contractors and so forth. But this will go kind of by our loading dock area and create more of an all weather shade structure. There'll be informational panels and signage, public art, sculptures, elements, a nature, prairie, landscape and just more programs that we'll be able to do. So currently, right now, it's not. There's a space outside that we can hold programs, but you know Kansas weather just like we've seen it can be gorgeous one day and then snowing the next or storms.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:Holy cow. I mean, that's just like you know and it's just you know there hasn't been enough national exposure to that situation out by Goodland. I agree, you know and, and you know, if that had been anywhere other than Kansas, that'd have been, you know, a top national headline, but eight people.
Speaker 2:I know.
Speaker 1:And and that's a that's a horrific situation. But you know, that's one of the things. You know, we live out here in the Plains and there are some of those weather instances that can come up and it's about that time of year.
Speaker 2:It really is, it's. It's terrifying, um, terrifying, and how quickly it can occur.
Speaker 1:And there's a lot of those weather education aspects that you have at the Flint Hills Discovery Center. Do you see how I nicely tied in there? Thank you, I really appreciate that.
Speaker 2:So we really want this space to be something that we can use and utilize, because we want children not only to learn about the prairie, about grasses, about the flowers, but be able to be out in it and out in that element, and then guests to be able to experience it on their own.
Speaker 2:You know, when we're open, be outside and experience this space. So we are currently working on that and so with that, we have some community tax credits that are available Kansas community tax credits that are available to help fund this project. So donations that are $250 or above can go toward that. I always ask or I guess, not ask, but suggest that you talk to your financial advisor if those would benefit you. But the foundation was a recipient of those, which is a huge process, and we are very grateful to be gifted those. So we do have to use those in full by the end of 2025. And those will go directly to help support that project. So we're hoping that that will be open by either late fall or I mean sorry, late summer or early fall of 2026, the outdoor classroom, which will be perfect timing for school to start up next year.
Speaker 1:All right? Yeah, let's talk a little bit about, you know, some activities that are going on at the Discovery Center. You always have a new exhibit or an exhibit in that's in play and what's? What's your spotlight right now?
Speaker 2:So right now we still have our immersive experiences going on stepping into the prairie. So that was our big project. I guess that the foundation worked with with the project. I guess that the foundation worked with um, with the um the task grant that we got um from the Kansas um tourism and commerce grant, so it was a 50, 50, um project. I guess together it was 200,000 from each of us that we put together and um created this experience, um. What is wonderful about it is the hardware will always be at the Discovery Center so we can create new exhibits off of it, to create new immersive experiences from it. But right now it is off of the stepping into the prairie so you can go through all four seasons when you are in the experience.
Speaker 1:I did notice that you had some high school age kids come in this past weekend that were here at the 2A State Basketball Tournament. What a neat opportunity for them. And most of those kids you know are from schools that are west of here Absolutely and you know they may not know a lot about what we have here in the Flint Hills but it is really a strength of Kansas that you know we have all this information that's available to them to learn.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. You know, the Discovery Center truly is for all ages. Personally, I have a six-year-old and I have all the way up to a 17-year-old, and my family can go in there and there's something for every one of my children, and so that's what we try to do there is make it a place where you can take your whole family, children all the way up to grandparents. You know we want, we want there to be lessons for everybody, and you learn something new each time you walk in there.
Speaker 1:So what's the favorite thing for a kid to do outside all the exhibit, the main exhibit, the traveling exhibit that you have. Favorite thing for a kid to do outside all the exhibit, the main exhibit, the traveling exhibit that you have Is it the karaoke auctioneer, is it the trains or other?
Speaker 2:Well, if you haven't watched the movie that we have, of course that's a big thing. Um, I would encourage everyone to to watch our film that is shown there. Um it, it truly captivates you. Um I? I work in the facility. I've seen it a thousand times and it is truly captivating. It is a timeless piece in that facility, so another quick hit here grow green match day.
Speaker 1:That's important for you.
Speaker 2:Absolutely yes. So the Flint Hills Discovery Center Foundation will be participating. I appreciate you plugging that for us. We again that does go to our youth education endowment and each year we again do different partnerships and programs with that. Whether it is for truly different things every year, a lot of times it goes toward our events like Breakfast with Santa our New Year's Eve we actually just bought a new turtle enclosure because we needed a new one. So different events like that help with our education endowment and that's all because of Grow Green. So we're happy and so grateful for that opportunity to participate.
Speaker 1:Anything else you want to add here before we let you loose and enjoy the rest of your St Patrick's Day here in your I'm not even so sure what you call that shade of green. I don't know, I'm not a very green person. It's a very light green.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I did realize today I'm not very green, you are very green.
Speaker 1:This is green. I got the GMCF colors on today. I did that on purpose.
Speaker 2:You did good.
Speaker 1:I did.
Speaker 2:No, I very much appreciate you having me and would be happy to help anybody with either event tickets for our Friends of the Flint Hills or Kansas Community Tax Credit.
Speaker 1:Available at flinthillsdiscoveryorg.
Speaker 2:Yes, thank you so much.
Speaker 1:Leslie White, always a pleasure to have you in. Thank you so much and despite not liking to do this, you really do a good job. Oh well, thanks, it's not you. Jim Gordon is going to be joining us. Next. We'll talk about CFAs and why it's important to have this event and what it means to his organization to be one of our primary sponsors for the event. It's the GMCF Community Hour. Find out more about us at mcfksorg and, by the way, that's where you can get your CFA tickets. You got yours, leslie.
Speaker 2:I do.
Speaker 1:Okay, good, we'll see you then in a week. Is it a week? It's a week. It's a week from tonight. All right, we'll be back in just a couple of moments here on NewsRadio KMAN.