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Community volunteer Jane Tolhurst's fund drive to buy two Steinway pianos for the Clayton Center for the Arts is getting national attention.

Tolhurst was invited to speak in New York City at the Keys to Finding Funds Seminar in June because of the overwhelming success of the project.

Jane and her husband, Fred, both felt that the Clayton Center needed the best pianos available. But when they heard that a total of $75,000 was budgeted by Maryville College for new pianos for the Clayton Center, they knew that top-of-the-line Steinway concert grand pianos were out of the question, as each piano would cost a whopping $105,000.

The Tolhursts have both been avid piano players since they began taking lessons at the age of 6. They bought their own Steinway piano in 1987, and have treasured it ever since. This passion is what drove them to start a campaign to raise the money for two Steinway concert grand pianos, one for each performance stage at the Clayton Center.

“Steinway's the best,” Jane Tolhurst explained. “Over 90 percent of concert pianists are Steinway artists. They want to play on a Steinway, and it's a draw to get concert artists in here.”

The Tolhursts felt that a unique, top-notch event was needed to help generate interest in the project and to start encourage donations. They decided that a soirée at their home was exactly the sort of event that the occasion called for.

The order for the pianos had to be placed by December to ensure that the pianos would be delivered in time for the grand opening of the Clayton Center, so the Tolhursts planned their soirée for September to give them three months to collect donations.

Fundraiser a success

With the help of the college, Bill Metcalfe, owner of the Steinway Piano Gallery of Nashville, and his son-in-law, Brandon Herrenbruck of the American Piano Gallery of Knoxville, the soirée was a great success. Out of 300 people invited to the event, 75 attended, learned about the project and enjoyed music played on the Tolhursts' own Steinway piano.

At their party, the Tolhursts introduced their plan for fundraising: The Grand Players Society. Anyone who donated $1,000 or more to the project was an official member of the new society created by the Tolhursts with privileges, such as being listed on the donation plaque hung in the Clayton Center, touring the Steinway factory, and being invited to future events and meeting visiting pianists; donors of $10,000 or over would be invited for a tour of the Steinway factory in Queens, New York.

The Grand Players Society generated the interest that the Tolhursts had hoped for, and generous donations started pouring in.

Although the college had donated the $75,000 piano fund to the Steinway project, the Tolhursts were able to give it back to the college, as they received enough donations not only to meet their goal, but to exceed it.

The Tolhursts asked that the money be spent on other pianos for the center. The $75,000 was then available to the college for other needs for instruments.

Money put into fund

The extra money that the Tolhursts raised for the project was put into a special maintenance fund for the Steinway pianos, to ensure that they would be a part of the Clayton Center for generations to come.

Despite the fact that the Tolhursts organized and ran the project, they recognize that it was because of the donors that the dream was realized.

In her presentation at the Keys to Finding Funds Seminar, Jane Tolhurst stated, “Our goal was met only because people with emotional involvement to great pianos were presented with an opportunity to connect to a project that was personally meaningful to them. Not only did we have our gorgeous two Steinways in their new home, but we had a society of donors that forever will be able to enjoy the part they played in providing the best for their new arts center and everyone who enters its doors.”