A charity leader who feared for the programme’s future two months ago thanked supporters yesterday after almost $140,000 was raised to continue operations.

Fiona Rodriguez-Roberts, the founder and director of Kaleidoscope Arts Foundation, said that donors reminded the organisation of its importance.

The charity appealed to the community in June for a lifeline after spiralling health insurance costs and other factors left it with a funding gap.

KAF announced then that it needed to raise $135,000 within three months to meet its needs and stay sustainable.

A spokeswoman said yesterday: “Today, they are excited and thankful to announce that they have exceeded this goal and have raised $139,964 through community donations.”

Ms Rodriguez-Roberts thanked everyone who made contact, donated and promoted the fundraising drive.

She added: “We are so thankful for our amazing community members and donors for stepping up and supporting this annual appeal.

“It was difficult and frustrating for me to think about Kaleidoscope shutting its doors, but luckily our community has spoken and reminded us how essential we are.”

Ms Rodriguez-Roberts said: “Kaleidoscope is starting September where we need to be, asking for more support for our programming, sharing with the community our true cost of small class sizes and keeping amazing teachers on staff.”

She told The Royal Gazette in June that if the charity, which aims to “empower” children through art, did not receive a significant amount of money within the next few months, it could end up closing.

Ms Rodriguez-Roberts said then: “Everybody’s take-home pay will go down this month because their health insurance has gone up. We have three months left in our fiscal year, so for the next three months, everyone is taking home less.

“In the new year, I will be putting everyone’s pay up again because my staff need to have a living wage. I have been trying to give them a living wage.

“We have not reduced the programming. We kept running them because our mission is to empower the children, and turning the children away is not what we wanted to do.

“I have not significantly increased the cost of our classes and camps before this point.”

She added: “Things have to shift. We need a good chunk of money in the next three months.

“If we continue to go the way that we are going, we will have to eventually close.”

Ms Rodriguez-Roberts noted that the donor community was stretched and that the organisation did not receive government funding.

She explained then that KAF ran a Creative Minds Programme that welcomed government preschool pupils and as well as some from P1 and P2.

Ms Rodriguez-Roberts added: “The schools individually pool together and make donations, which is fantastic, but it doesn’t pay for the programme.”

As well as the public school programmes, KAF has its own preschool, it creates lessons and works art into school curriculum areas, including social studies, science, maths and literacy.

It runs an after-school programme, camps and home-schooling. It also collaborates with other charities on certain programmes.

KAF, launched in 2006, will offer a range of class options in September for participants aged from 18 months to adulthood.

• For more information, visitkaf.bm, e-mail info@kaf.bm or call 542-9000