Donor pledges $40,000 in matching funds for elevator project
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Editor’s Note: LeAnn R. Ralph serves on the Colfax elevator commission.
By LeAnn R. Ralph
COLFAX — An anonymous donor has pledged $40,000 in matching funds for the Colfax Municipal Building elevator project.
The donor is an alumnus of Colfax High School, said Lisa Bragg-Hurlburt, director of the Colfax Public Library, and a member of the Colfax elevator commission.
Bragg-Hurlburt keeps track of the donations for the elevator commission.
The matching funds pledge will go through the end of the year, which means other donors will have until December of this year to make donations for the elevator fund that will qualify for the matching funds.
As of April 4, the Colfax elevator fund has raised just shy of $183,000.
The elevator project for the Colfax Municipal Building would install an elevator to serve the basement, main floor and auditorium, would add bathrooms to the auditorium and basement, and would renovate the basement into a useable space.
“After learning that a Colfax alumnus will match $40,000 of all new elevator project donations in 2025, we began spreading the word locally,” Bragg-Hurlburt said.
Good response
The response so far to the pledge of $40,000 in matching funds has been more rigorous than anticipated..
“In February we received two more memorial donations for Jean Fox, money from postcard sales at The Blind Tiger, a late thrift sale purchase at Mark’s shop [Colfax Arts and Antique Mall and Cafe II Coffee Shop & Bakery], birthday money in honor of Elaine Knutson and Doris Tuschl, and birthday fundraiser money from Mark Johnson. Altogether, $1,585 was donated in February,” Bragg-Hurlburt said.
“As of March 13, 2025, an additional $2,092 was donated, of which $30 came from a 10 year old boy who made some snow shoveling money a couple of weeks ago; a library patron; memorials were dropped off for Mark Kragness and Barb Kistner; and a mother-daughter pair who’ve donated in the past donated again because, [they said,] ‘with the match, the money will have more impact,’” Bragg-Hurlburt said, adding, “The mother is in her mid nineties and has enjoyed cultural events in the Cozy Theater in the past, but is finding the stairs more of a barrier than they used to be. She wants to continue coming to our programming.”
Over the first two months of 2025, the elevator project raised $3,677 that qualifies for the matching funds, or a total of $7,354 with the matching funds, Bragg-Hurlburt said.
During the Colfax library’s weekly update video posted on Facebook, Bragg-Hurlburt noted on March 27 that a total of $7,079 qualified for the matching funds from the anonymous donor.
When Bragg-Hurlburt added up the donations for the entire month of March, however, the total donations for the elevator project in March alone amounted to $6,891, or $13,782 with the matching funds, and the funds came from 45 separate donations.
Fund raisers
The $183,000 has been raised by the community since the Colfax Village Board appointed the elevator commission in 2018.
The money has been raised through pledges, donations and fund raisers, such as the elevator project thrift sale at the Colfax Fairgrounds in August and the $22 for 22 Steps campaign.
Along the way, Bragg-Hurlburt has kept a list of donors.
“My donor list was hand-written in four notebooks. Looking through it and typing things up brought back a lot of memories and a lot of gratitude,” she said.
“So many people contributed and sent us encouraging notes. Different local organizations chose this project as their community fundraiser. People left donations in memory of their most important people in the world when they passed away. People shared birthday money with us. It makes me feel really good because people are doing this because they love this building and community, and they want everyone to be included in events,” Bragg-Hurlburt said.
According to Bragg-Hurlburt’s records, the largest donor to the elevator project has been the Colfax Municipal Building Restoration Group. Besides the $35,000 pledge, the group conducted numerous fundraising activities over the years that contributed over $5000 additional.
The community thrift sale has been the elevator commission’s most successful fundraiser, with $14,118 raised since the thrift sales began.
The Classes of 1958, 1962, and 1967 have made sizable group donations following their reunions.
Different local organizations have donated, including the Merry Mixers, Girl Scouts, Boy Scouts, White Tail Golf ladies group, Colfax Lutheran Church, and the Red Cedar Sounds Sweet Adelines, Svee Metalworks (the owner is Gail Svee’s son), Ray’s Metal Works, and Colfax Chevrolet.
Some people made one or two fairly large donations, and some have made many small donations, Bragg-Hurlburt said.
One donor, who donated $22 on 61 separate occasions, donated a total of $1,342 and was therefore one of the top donors, she said, adding that most of the donations from that donor were memorials for beloved local people who passed away.
So far in 2025, memorial donations have included those given in memory of Jean Fox, Mark Kragness, Barb Kistner, Nancy Johnson, Heidi Bowe, Frank and Hilly Freestone, Jasper and Alice Johnson, Harold and Signe Holman, Roger Lemler, Bev Walton, Kennth and Marion Haugle, Bud and Shirley Hodgson, Beverly Peterson Railton, Gail Svee, Freestone, Kielholz and Howe family members, Butch, Eldora and Steve Sipple (with an honorary donation for Barb Braaten), Wendy Knutson, Stan Bergum, Joan Scharlau, Jerry Hartung, Alice Hawkins and Ken Tape.
