Philanthropy Today
Philanthropy Today
Manhattan Arts Center on the GMCF Community Hour Show Episode - 292
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We talk with Kendra Coleman from the Manhattan Arts Center about how a single weekend can bring 3,000 neighbors together and still raise real money for programs. We trace how festivals, partnerships, and match-day giving turn into scholarships, equipment, building fixes, and a bigger arts season for Manhattan.
• mac and cheese festival growth and what worked
• large-scale printmaking with K-State and the road flattener reveal
• artist market, live music, costume garage sale, and the annual art contest theme Unravel
• how proceeds support ceramics, Common Table, and youth programming scholarships
• outdoor classroom plans including murals, furniture, Wi‑Fi, electricity, planters, and a small stage
• auditions and upcoming shows including Radium Girls and youth theater
• season highlights including a Britney Spears musical, The Nutcracker partnership, and more
• why Grow Green Match Day funding matters for maintenance, space, equipment, and supplies
ManhattanArts.org is the website. You can always find out more there.
Sponsor And Segment Setup
SPEAKER_00Philanthropy 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 News Radio KMAN. Back with the GMCF Community Hour here on News Radio KMAN. And uh, you know, I'm I'm gonna try to keep a straight face here because Jada's over here mocking me uh as I as I talk, just to make sure, you know, I I say things the way I'm supposed to say things, at least in her mind. So so I'm gonna try to keep it together for you, Kendra. Okay? Okay, Kendra Coleman is here. Kendra is the executive director of the Manhattan Arts Center. Welcome back, my friend.
SPEAKER_02Hello.
SPEAKER_00Hi, you had a busy weekend too.
SPEAKER_02I'm exhausted. Are you? We threw a party.
SPEAKER_00Oh, you sure sound happy for being exhausted.
SPEAKER_02I know. Well, we threw a party and 3,000 community members showed up. Wow. It was pretty cool.
SPEAKER_00That is just exploding. This is what, four or five years old?
SPEAKER_02Third. Third one. Third year.
SPEAKER_00Because I was there the first year. Yes. And I had, you know, couldn't do the the last two because of other things because I work a lot on weekends. But man, that's exciting. I saw a nice picture there in the Mercury about, you know, some poster with a roller or whatever it was. That was unique.
SPEAKER_02Yes. We um we expanded again this year, and we're thankful to the city of Manhattan who let us block off Points Avenue in front of the Arts Center. So they pushed that through, and we were very excited to be able to have that extra space and put our printmaking demonstration, a demonstration I've been wanting to try for a long time. So we reached out to Jason Shula at the K-State Printmaking Department, and he also has wanted to try this for a long time. And throughout the semester, his students were carving very large wood blocks, like three foot by five foot. And you have to carve it in the opposite because the ink is gonna go to reverse. It's all of that. And so they have been working on these. I think there were at least eight different uh panels. And then we got a it's not a steam roller, it's a road flattener. And you ink these, and then a road flattener drives over them so they're perfectly makes the impression flat, and then you you reveal so that you know you carve and carve all semester and you don't know what it's going to look like, and you get one shot to roll over this, and then when you when you pull up and reveal the print, it's magic. So we got to see that. Um did they do just one or did they um there they each block did at least two, and so we had them drawing all over inside outside the art center, and then they will be at Switch Wicked on April 4th at their market, possibly for sale. That's a switch wicked. It was a great partnership.
SPEAKER_00That's this weekend, isn't it? Wow.
SPEAKER_02Yes, on Saturday.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, okay. Well, what else with the mac and cheese uh festival?
SPEAKER_02We had our mac or mac and cheese contest again for two years in a row. TCB Street Eats One, but we have a new champion who took the trophy, Smoke and Willie's. Ah. So everyone gets to vote. They purchased their tasting ticket and then they vote. It was close.
SPEAKER_00What made their special?
SPEAKER_02Um, it was it had lots of different kinds of cheese in it. It was pretty good. I voted for TCB, I'll just be honest. But you know, the people get to vote, and that's how we do it. So that's the way it's got to take the coveted trophy home with them.
SPEAKER_00Uh-huh. How many vendors did you have?
SPEAKER_02We had we had five in the competition and three others that were smaller that had more of drinks. And then we had MHK Brewing Company as well. So we did have some adult beverages and some sangria and all kinds of things happening. We had about 20 artists that were selling their art, and a lot of them had a very successful day. We had live music, so musicians from our area, and we had Switch Wicked leading that music tent. We had a costume garage sale, which was a huge hit.
SPEAKER_00A costume garage sale. Is that just like outfits from uh previous productions that you've had at the match?
Where The Fundraising Goes
SPEAKER_02Absolutely. Cats we had we had a few women came in and they all bought a hat and then they wore them around the festival. So fun times. Lots of costumes, lots of just um, we had some props in there. We had our art contest winner revealed. So we um do an annual art contest, and our 2026 winner was Sean Delker, and we have her art on display at the Mac along with five other entrants that entered the competition. They have their pieces up as well. And the theme this year was Unravel, and they took their interpretation of that theme to create original art, and then we got together a committee to evaluate and choose the winner, and then we have our art contest winner for the case.
SPEAKER_00Is this a fundraiser or is this just an event?
SPEAKER_02The entire event, different parts of it raised funds for different pieces of the Mac. We also had a ceramic sale, and with that, half of the proceeds go back into our ceramics studio and half go to Common Table. So we also like to say that Mac gives back with our fundraising efforts. We have um a lot of our funds will go to our summer youth programming scholarships. We don't have a fund set aside. We value the yes fund that gets us through spring and fall, but we don't have a scholarship fund for summer. And we have hundreds and hundreds of kids that do various camps or classes or workshops through our summer. And so we want to be able to offer scholarships all year round, and it also helps us fund some of our camp supplies to keep our camps running. It takes a lot to keep to keep things going in the summer. We are packed full of kids and activities, and so a lot of that goes back to summer youth theater or it goes into um helping our um programs continue to grow. So we have a lot of needs in our ceramics. With our ceramics department, we have now have two studios. And so we're trying to outfit both of those with enough wheels and supplies so that they are both fully functional.
Building The Outdoor Classroom
SPEAKER_00Okay. Well, what's next for the Manhattan Arts Center? I mean, you've got you always got something going on. You've got productions, you know, you've got art. There's so many different things that uh that that you got your hands on.
SPEAKER_02We also, it's it's about halfway done. We have an outdoor classroom space. I don't know if you've driven by the art center, our small annex building.
SPEAKER_00I will later today, just to see. Okay.
SPEAKER_02To the east of that, there was a a space that isn't really used, it wasn't used for parking, just kind of an empty space. There were um two murals on the side of that space. Frank Hammond was the artist that did one of those murals, and he came to me and originally wanted to finish his mural. And then the project grew into the mural, finishing the side of the building with the mural, and then blending the mural into the parking lot space so that it's it's it's kind of this larger encompassing mural. Then we got K-State Interior Architecture and Industrial Design involved. They have created furniture, and this all was funded through the Greater Manhattan Community Foundation Community Arts Fund. So we are very appreciative because without that funding, we couldn't have made this project happen. And it's been a delight working with K-State faculty and students. The um in the landscape architecture students are now working on some native plants and they are building some planters. We have WTC, we have Wi-Fi now outside, we have electricity in that space. We're planning to put in a small stage to do some outdoor performances, and hopefully it will just be a great community space and classroom space where the community can come and relax and use it and study, or we could have a small concert, or we could have a class out there. We just really need space, and this seems to be a perfect place to have an outdoor space. We also will have sunshades that will go over it. It's a heated space sometimes in the summer. And the idea for creating a classroom started last summer when we just threw a um donated picnic table out there, and it was used every single day. So that cued us in that hey, we think we could utilize this space, and the partnership has been amazing. So we hope to continue that.
Auditions And Upcoming Productions
SPEAKER_00Cool. Well, we got a few minutes left here. So we got to get on the express train here to talk about some things that are coming up. Shows.
SPEAKER_02We have amazing shows.
SPEAKER_00Wait a minute, wait a minute. Is Jaina here for a reason?
SPEAKER_02Well, Jaina is a huge part of the Manhattan Art Center.
SPEAKER_00If you don't know that already, um we I I just found out last week that the girl can sing.
SPEAKER_02Amazing. Thank you. Thank you. Absolutely amazing. And I get to see you a lot at the Art Center. We appreciate people like you that volunteer your time. You have full-time jobs, you have child, and you still are dedicated. You come to the Mac and Cheese Fest, you're in our shows, you help with our shows. We can't do it without people.
SPEAKER_01There's a lot of really great shows coming up, um, auditions, and tonight for you're in town, which is their next musical production. Um, that'll be in June. So make sure that if you're wanting to audition, that you get your butt in there today so that you can get your name on that list. And then um, I actually am assistant directing Radium Girls, which is going to be here in April. So um that is Radium Girls.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01So it's about the girls who were fighting against the Radium Corporation because they were being poisoned by the Radium Paint that they were utilizing to paint um the clock dials for the war effort. And so it's their struggle and their story and also their um success at the end of the show. So it's a fantastic production, and um I would recommend coming out to see it. It's the first two weekends in April.
SPEAKER_00Okay.
SPEAKER_01Yes. Or the second two weekends in April. It's in April.
SPEAKER_02It's going to be fantastic. Um, the kids are high school kids. We had an audition show, and they will be doing You're a Good Man Charlie Brown at the beginning of May. Very good. It's gonna be so good. Super cute show. And we also announced our next year's season. Woo! Okay, details festival. So our season tickets won't go on sale until beginning of May.
SPEAKER_00Okay.
SPEAKER_02However, we will be doing Once Upon a One More Time. It's a Britney Spears musical.
SPEAKER_01If you don't know, it's about princesses, like kind of like I don't say rebelling, but it's kind of like they're like a woo power story type of princess by Britney Spears music. It's gonna be fantastic.
SPEAKER_00Okay. I bet the kids really love being a part of that.
SPEAKER_01It'll be me who's gonna be a part of it.
SPEAKER_00Oh, I'm I'm sorry. Yeah, you're still a kid to me. So you're allowed to be a good one. It's gonna be fun.
SPEAKER_02Very awesome. We are doing in partnership with Washington Dance, K-State Dance, and um our ballroom group, we are putting on the Nutcracker. Oh my god, production that we hope we will be able to continue year after year after year. Huge. That will be in December, of course. Yes. So that'll be the first two, possibly three weekends of December, depending on how that goes.
SPEAKER_00Uh-huh.
SPEAKER_02So we're excited to bring that up.
SPEAKER_00It's not often you have something go three weekends, is it?
SPEAKER_02It's not. But we think this will be a with all of our partnerships and collaborations and all that will go into this production, we think it might be perfect to do that for three weekends. And then we will have the little Apple Core. It is a play written specifically for Manhattan about Manhattan by a playwright.
SPEAKER_00Oh my.
SPEAKER_02So that is exciting.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I got to meet him. He's fantastic. So it's a story about um women who leave Manhattan and then come back in their stories.
SPEAKER_02Which is a lot of us. Cool.
SPEAKER_01Yep.
SPEAKER_02Yes. Um, we will do it, be doing our dance show again. The theme is 12, 12 months of the year. So we'll have that as part of our season ticket lineup. We are doing The Stranger by Agatha Christie and Dear Evan Hansen. Oh, Lozer. So we are really excited. I think it's gonna be a great season. So we'll have all of that packed in, plus kids' shows. So we will also do five kids' shows.
SPEAKER_00Okay.
SPEAKER_02And the summer we started out with The Little Mermaid. So that's for our smaller kids, and then we'll do Godspell. And if you're not familiar, our older kids will be doing that. It is quite a production.
Grow Green Match Day Needs
SPEAKER_00Yeah, my daughter was in Godspel at Tabor. So wonderful. That's fun. You got 30 seconds to tell us about what Grow Green Match Day means to you.
SPEAKER_02Oh gosh. I cannot say enough when it is hard to have funding that, as Emily was saying, that we could use to help fix our building and replace our air conditioners that are in our roof, which is going downhill. We are in a very old building and it takes a lot of maintenance to keep things like that going. And you there aren't grant funds for things like that. Um, those things that pop up and come up that you don't expect and you don't budget for, and we and we always have a lot of that um that happens. So it's nice to have funds that we can utilize and have in our safety net for things like that. And we also, I mean, we are just growing and growing and expanding. And so, in order to do that and to get rid of our wait lists, we'll have we need more space, we need more equipment, we need more supplies. So funds like that can help us get things, get programs going, and then we can hopefully write grants to continue those programs. But we do um our youth education programs are just like we've tripled in size over three years for the number of programs that we offer to youth and adults. So we just want to continue fulfilling those needs for our community and getting more people involved in the arts. I think right now creating community is more important than ever.
SPEAKER_00ManhattanArts.org is the website. You can always find out more there. And Crown Kendra always would like to have you here.
SPEAKER_02You too.
SPEAKER_00Continued good wishes and and uh congrats, high fives, on the successful Mac and Cheese Festival and many other endeavors.
SPEAKER_02Thank you, Jaina.
SPEAKER_00You can just stay right there.
SPEAKER_02I'll be right here.
SPEAKER_00All right, because we're gonna talk about some things that are coming up. It's the GMCF community hour here on News Radio KMN. Back in a moment.