For all the small Mid-Shore nonprofit organizations out there struggling to complete capital projects, there is good news to be found in talking to Clay Washington. Clay, the president of Kennard School Alumni Association, is the extraordinary leader of a remarkable Mid-Shore success story – the renovation of Queen Anne’s County’s only African-American high school in Queen Anne’s County -into a major community center and museum.
For the past ten years, Washington and his fellow board members have been focused on preserving this special historical school. While this has been a labor of love for the alum, the price of this kind of project has been high with almost $2 million dollars needed to open the facility.
Beyond celebrating the near completion of a great project, the lessons learned with the Kennard School project should be an inspiration for the entire Mid-Shore and so many other worthy restoration efforts in the region.
The Spy interview with Clay is divided into two parts. The first is a traditional long-form interview. The second is what we are calling a “drill down,” which gives even more information about Clay’s approach to raising capital funds.
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