Germantown Kiwanis Club Gehl Foods Performing Arts Pavillion Rendering

GFPAP Meeting Its Goals for 2017

The dream of building the Gehl Foods Performing Arts Pavillion in Firemen’s Park is looking more and more like a reality for the Germantown Kiwanis Club. Just watch the “thermometer chart” in front of the Germantown library and see the mercury rise on this project.

John Krause and Jim Barnes, members of the Germantown Kiwanis are spearheading the committee for the Gehl Foods Performing Arts Pavillion. Krause, the committee chairman and chief proponent of the project, has secured an important source of private funding through the Gehl family who founded Gehl Foods, Germantown’s long standing industrial base business.

Barnes, a music instructor at Germantown High School, has recently established a Go Fund Me account to accept donations to finish the Gehl Foods Performing Arts Pavillion. According to the total shown on the publicly viewable Go Fund Me page, they have raised over $41,000 in small donations from private individuals.

Krause told the Kiwanis Club at their regular Wednesday morning meeting at Aldo’s Pub and Pizzeria that the Leadership Germantown team will create a “Buy A Brick” campaign to encourage all Germantown community citizens to join the effort to complete the Pavillion in time for the summer of 2017.

The Germantown Kiwanis Club is looking for community minded people who would like to help with the funding for this project. The “Thermometer Chart” in front of the Germantown Village Hall is one way the community can check the progress on the Gehl Foods Performing Arts Pavillion. As of today they are within $100,000 of their $400,000 goal.  

Donations are welcome.  Just go to  this link: http://www.gofundme.com/y4gsaw. Donations can be made by credit card.

In recent months the  Germantown Kiwanis Club has been in discussions with the Germantown Building Construction Oversite Committee. The committee has indicated that they want the Gehl Foods Performing Arts Pavillion to be constructed in the Northeast corner of Firemen’s Park. This location was a change from the earlier site between the baseball field and the old Firehouse. Adjustments to the site needed to be made.

After the structure is built the Germantown Parks and Recreation Department will use the facility to hold events in the park for the area groups, i.e., Germantown Band, the Germantown High School Band and organizations such as Destination Imagination. It will be available for weddings and private events. It is the hope of the Germantown Kiwanis Club that more events will be created for the pavillion. One idea is to have a Jazz In The Park night at the pavillion for the whole community to enjoy.

Interested Germantown residents will find the Gehl Foods Performing Arts Pavillion page to be informative. There are multiple digital .pdf files available there including a brochures for fund raising and information on the construction of the GFPAP. Follow this link to review the page.