“We’re feeling confident,” said Rendina, public relations director of the National World War I Museum, which sprawls beneath the 217-foot tower in Kansas City’s Penn Valley Park.
“But you never know,” she said, “until you have the money in hand.”
No, you never do, which is how this whole Save the Flame campaign came about.
Back in March, as you’ll remember, the Liberty Memorial Association was among the agencies taking a hit when the City Council slashed costs to balance the city budget.
Something had to give, and one of those somethings was the steam emitting from the mouth of the Liberty Memorial tower. When illuminated, it resembles a flame. It costs $45,000 a year to run the steam system, and so the flame was snuffed to help offset the $620,000 cut from the memorial’s budget request.
Not everyone noticed nor cared when the flame went out.
But Jeannie Carlson was distressed enough to launch a fundraising campaign in her Crown Center-area condo building, Santa Fe Place. Once asked, surely other Kansas Citians would help raise what it would take to reignite the flame, she figured.
“I wonder if you and your readers know how easy it is to make a highly visible difference in the Kansas City night sky,” Carlson said in her e-mail to me, “as well as honor the memory of those who fought in the Great War and those who continue to work toward peace.”
Seemed like a worthy cause, so I wrote a column about her effort to keep the flame burning every night of the year, not just on certain holidays, which was the memorial association’s plan.
I have no idea how many sets of eyes read that column on the Friday before Memorial Day. Fortunately, one pair belonged to the president of Kansas City-based Pioneer Services, which provides financial services to members of the military.
Like Carlson, Pioneer’s Tom Holcom was upset to learn that the eternal flame had gone out for lack of funds. The same day the article ran Holcom put his subordinates to work. By 7 that night, they had created the savetheflame.org campaign and made a $5,000 donation to keep the flame going through Independence Day.
What’s more, Pioneer pledged to match up to $22,500 in other contributions — enough to keep the flame burning for a year — if the money was raised by the Fourth.
“As our nation’s official World War I Museum, we just couldn’t sit back and let the flame be extinguished,” Holcom said in a news release.
The newspapers USA Today and Stars and Stripes gave the story national and international play. Local media picked up on the story, too. Among the biggest promoters has been country music radio station 106.5 FM “The Wolf,” which runs hourly public service announcements. Station deejays make frequent plugs.
Individual donations of as little as $5 and as much as $1,000 have come in from around the country. The Bank of Kansas City donated $5,000 just last week.
As of Tuesday, the Save the Flame campaign had raised $37,600, which leaves $3,700 ($7,400 after Pioneer’s match) to reach the $45,000. To help, visit savetheflame.org. Or send a check made out to the National World War I Museum — write Save the Flame in the memo line — to 100 W. 26th St., Kansas City, Mo. 64108.
With luck, the goal will be reached in time for a 10 a.m. celebration Thursday at the memorial.
If not, there’s still plenty of reason to celebrate the generosity of those who stepped up when the flame went out.
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