Donor offers 10K matching grant for coffee pot

 STANTON — An anonymous donor has jumpstarted the fundraising campaign to save Stanton’s famed coffeepot water tower. 

In April, Stanton’s City Council agreed to pay to relocate the 30-foot tower to the Swedish town’s historical center. 

Stanton’s Historical Society will assume ownership of the iconic tower, which will be sandblasted, painted and mounted on legs 10-feet tall. 

Cost of that renovation has been estimated at $75,000 and the ongoing fundraising campaign recently received a significant boost in the form of a $10,000 matching donation. 

There is no time limit on the donation, but Historical Society past president Marlene Kennon said organizers are hoping to have the funds raised by Homecoming 2015. 

“That’s our goal, to have all the money raised by then,” Kennon said. “And if we can take this donor’s gift and turn it into $20,000, that would be a great start.”

Kennon said they also recently received a $5,000 donation from Danny Feld, a Los Angeles photographer who is the son of Virginia Christie. 

The water tower, built in 1914, was remodeled in 1970 into a coffeepot in honor of Christine who played Mrs. Olson in Folger’s Coffee commercials, Stanton’s famed water tower is the world’s largest coffeepot. 

By 2000 though, the pot could no longer supply enough water for the town, and a larger water tower, fashioned as a cup and saucer with the same floral design, was built on the south side  of town. 

Now, the city is undergoing a $1.2 million water main replacement project that will make the water tower obsolete. All of the city’s water will come from the cup and saucer after the project is completed later this year. 

Initial cost estimates to repair and renovate the tower at its existing location were about $500,000. 

“There’s some people who want to keep it where it’s at, but we just plain don’t have the money,” City Administrator Zeb McFarland said in April. “We can’t ask everyone to come up with that kind of money, and we can’t even bill for it because it won’t be part of our water system anymore.”

The city has agreed to finance the $30,000 fee to move and install the water tower at the Swedish Heritage Center, located on Hilltop Avenue. 

Donations to the project can be made to the Stanton Historical Society and earmarked for the coffee pot. The Historical Society will also be using funds raised through other events currently being planned.