Center Awarded a $500,000, 2-to-1 Challenge Grant

The Segerstrom Foundation has awarded a $500,000 challenge grant to the Orange County Performing Arts Center for operations and programming, Center President Thomas R. Kendrick said Thursday.

The grant requires a 2-to-1 match of $1 million in new contributions to the Performance Fund by Feb. 15, 1989, according to foundation President Thomas S. Santley, and is intended to spur other donors to help close the Center’s annual income gap.

The Center has an overall fund-raising goal of $4.8 million for 1988. That amount includes $2.5 million for the Performance Fund, which raises money solely for operations and programming not raised by other fund-raising sources.

Asked how much had been donated to the Performance Fund so far this year, Kendrick said those figures were not immediately available. But he noted that volunteer groups raising money for the fund “have got a significant push” from this donation.

When the new challenge grant is matched, the Segerstrom family will have given the Center a total of $6.6 million in cash since 1979--not counting its 5-acre gift of land valued at $6.1 million on which the Center is built, or its donation of Richard Lippold’s “Fire Bird” sculpture overlooking the building entrance, which is estimated to have cost $1 million.

The Center overall fund-raising goal for 1989 will be $5.3 million, Kendrick said.

The chairman of the Center’s board of directors and chief executive officer is Henry T. Segerstrom.