Jones Center on track with funding goals

It’s been a busy year at the Jones Center in Springdale after the non-profit revamped its business model in 2012 in the face of dwindling finances in order to keep the massive 220,000 square-foot family resource and recreation center afloat.

The endowment from benefactor Bernice Jones had taken a beating from volatile market swings, and the $10,000 a-day operating costs presented the Jones Center Trust with funding challenges and hard decisions had to made.

The vision of Bernice Jones is alive and well in Springdale because of a diligent team of professionals that make up the non-profit’s development council and the organization’s board that got down to business last year, Ed Clifford, CEO of the Jones Center, said during a media luncheon on Wednesday (July 31).

He said the $10 million matching grants from the Walton Family Foundation and $10 million from the Care Foundation pledged in December 2012, left the Jones Trust $10 million to raise. This will give the Trust endowment $53 million, which will generate $1.7 million, which is slightly more than half of the Jones Center’s $3.6 million annual budget.

The key, Clifford said, is that the endowment is there to provide sustainable income because the non-profit’s development council will raise $1 million annually and the center’s lease revenue also generates about $1 million.

Kelly Kemp, chief advancement officer at the Jones Center, said that giving this year is up and she too credited the development council with being well on its way to meeting their $1 million annual goal.

Mike Gilbert, chief operating officer for the Jones Trust, said the council and Kemp’s team is in the midst of raising the $10 million needed to top off the endowment. While it takes a lot of money to operate, Gilbert said the payoff is in the difference it is making in the lives of at risk youth, or the 185 people who learned to swim this summer in the Jones Center pool because of a strategic partnership with the Red Cross.

Bryce Napier, who helps run the Youth Strategies out of the Jones Center, said the 18 teens he has mentored this summer have benefited in a huge way.

“Some of these kids don’t know where their next meal is coming from because all they may have to eat at home is box of Twinkies and a bag of Doritos. They come here and work for us keeping the grounds and fixing bicycles,” Napier said.

The teens earn $20 a day and they are fed at the Jones Center. He said NorthWest Arkansas Community College, another strategic partnership at the Jones Center, met and talked with them about college possibilities, and they have been counseled on health and finance. Napier said one of them was able to buy his first car this summer, and said the finance class helped him with his savings.

The Jones Center has also been a War Eagle camp site for 97 kids this summer. The campers spend 10 weeks in a day-camp environment, which has provided structured childcare to working families. This program was funded by a private grant and run by the War Eagle camp team. Clifford said these partnerships are helping to increase the regular use of the massive facility, because they are introducing new people to the community resource.

The Jones Center recently partnered with the Schmieding Center to offer a senior citizen membership. Patrons will use the Jones Center for recreation and be transported to the Schmieding Center for educational seminars.

It’s not quite been a year since the Jones Center began requiring memberships. Joy Heuer, membership director, said there are 1,807 members and another 337 families on scholarship who pay a reduced fee thanks a grant.

The decision to charge memberships was a tough one because of Bernice Jones’s vision to never turn anyone away regardless of their ability to pay. But according to Clifford, the center became a hangout place for area youth. That is not the case today, he said. 


“There is a new energy and excitement in this place thanks in part our so many great partners pouring into positive vibes. Kids of ages are still here, but they are engaged in learning and recreation. We have security and we’re seeing families use the center again,” he said.

Michael Kirk, who oversees recreation and programming for the center, said patrons could expect more structured programing in the coming months. A children’s gymnastic program will begin in December and this fall he expects to offer a developmental adult hockey league and indoor soccer league.

He hopes to get a winter adult volleyball league going as well.