Nature center finds funding

Five months after announcing a grim future for the Ozark Natural Science Center, the center’s board instead has raised nearly $1 million toward sustaining its science education programs for another 20 years.

The Ozark Natural Science Center issued a news release Monday that its Growing Forward capital campaign has raised $830,000 toward a goal of $1 million in support of the center’s programs.

Ken Ewing, founder of the center, said the board plans to go beyond the $1 million, though, with the hope of reducing the cost for school districts to send children to the center and eventually to fund an endowment, he said.

The suspension affected only this year’s summer programs, and regular programming will resume in September, Ewing said.

The center opened in 1992 with a summer camp and later added a two-day, one-night residential environmental education program for area school children. More than 45,000 children have stayed overnight since that program began in 1994.

The center’s campus is in the Bear Hollow Natural Area on 500 acres of Arkansas Natural Heritage Commission land in Madison County between Eureka Springs and Huntsville.

The first $1 million raised through the Growing Forward campaign will go toward improving technology infrastructure at the center, refurbishing its facilities, hiring a marketing director and symposiums for organizations involved in science education, Ewing said.

Improvements in technology will allow the center to reach children who aren’t able to visit.

The board also is working to close the gap between what schools pay for children to attend the overnight program and its actual cost, Ewing said. The program costs about $200, but the center charges $134 per child.

The board won’t raise the cost for schools but instead has been working to reduce the center’s overall costs.

The board had announced in late February that it was suspending its overnight program for school-age children and its summer camp program because expenses had continued to exceed revenue.

As public outcry about the center’s possible closure grew, Ewing asked the board to give him a week to determine what level of support existed in the community, he said.