Brooksville Challenge near halfway to fundraising goal

BLUE HILL – The Brooksville Challenge is well on its way to meeting its goal of raising $100,000 for Friendship House.

The challenge so far has raised about $45,000 toward that goal, which will help the overall fundraising effort to raise $850,000 for Friendship House, an adult day service program that will be housed in the former Left Bank Cafe building.

“So we’re about halfway,” said John Eysenbach, co-chairman of the Friendship House fundraising effort, himself a Brooksville resident.

Reaching the goal will allow the challenge to name the large program room “The Brooksville Room,” in honor of Gerry and Jackie Bryan, two Brooksville residents. Gerry Bryan developed a support network that helped to care for his wife until her death earlier this year, and has spearheaded efforts to create Friendship House.

“This has created a lot of excitement in Brooksville,” Eysenbach said. “We really have a lot of support for this.”

The $100,000 goal is a reachable figure that doesn’t intimidate people the way the overall goal might, he said.

“When people look at $100,000, they realize ‘I can make a difference,”‘ he said.

The campaign got an additional boost recently from a childhood friend of Gerry Bryan. When he heard about the campaign, Eysenbach said, he promised that if Brooksville could raise the $100,000, he would provide an additional $50,000 for the project.