Announcing the Tools for Change Capital Campaign to Expand the Astronaut Leland Melvin STEM Center at Jubilee!
Jubilee is taking the next big step towards fighting poverty in our community and helping the entire family build a brighter future. We are launching the Tools for Change Capital Campaign for $1 Million to expand the Astronaut Leland Melvin STEM Center!
During COVID, Jubilee renovated an old car wash on its property into the Astronaut Leland Melvin STEM Center. Over the past three years, demand has exceeded classroom space. Jubilee's educational partners, Central Virginia Community College (CVCC) and Adult & Career Education (ACE) of Central Virginia, have committed to filling additional, larger classrooms with more students and classes if the space is created to house them.
The Astronaut Leland Melvin STEM Center offers college classes and certification training for adults, including cybersecurity, building trades, Certified Nursing Assistant, and more! Jubilee's Life Coach helps guide adult students through academic enrichment, career planning, and job training programs that enable them to enter the skilled labor workforce, increasing their income and helping stabilize their families.
With this expansion, Jubilee will add five new classrooms, a patio, and a ramp for all-access to the Astronaut Leland Melvin STEM Center!
The Astronaut Leland Melvin STEM Center is not just for adults - it's also for children! We're happy to share that a new Media Center, which will be located in one of the new classrooms in the expanded STEM Center, will be named the Mark Spain Media Center in memory of Jubilee's good friend, ABC 13 WSET News Anchor, Mark Spain. In 2024, Mark chose Jubilee as his WSET Community Counts Partner. Through this partnership, our community raised $75,000 in only two months to outfit a new Media Center for youth at Jubilee, where they will learn the skills necessary for careers in digital media, including photography, videography, podcasting, graphic design, film/audio/photo editing, and journalism. This remarkable accomplishment would not have been possible without Mark Spain, and Jubilee is humbled to be able to honor Mark's memory for decades to come through the Mark Spain Media Center at Jubilee.
In August 2025, several current Jubilee Board of Directors members conducted a top-secret mission to raise $100,000 for the Tools for Change Capital Campaign to name the Shop Learning Lab in the Astronaut Leland Melvin STEM Center in honor of Dr. Sterling Wilder, Jubilee's Executive Director. He had no idea this was happening, and at Jubilee's Top Chef Special Event, they surprised Dr. Wilder with this honor! He was shocked!
Now that the Tools for Change Capital Campaign has been announced, we want to offer everyone the opportunity to support the campaign with a gift in honor of Jubilee's longtime Executive Director, Dr. Sterling Wilder! This is an opportunity for our community to recognize the fantastic work Sterling has done over the past 26 years at Jubilee, as well as to create a lasting legacy for the future. Those who donate to the Tools for Change Capital Campaign will be permanently recognized on a Donor Wall in the Shop Learning Lab.
Please join us in creating lasting change in Lynchburg and Central Virginia, and consider this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to honor our friend Sterling Wilder.
Thank you for being a friend to Jubilee Family Development Center!
February 11, 2026: Special Announcement! Thanks to a $50,000 donation from Jubilee's friends, Candace and Pete Caprise, Classroom #4 in the Astronaut Leland Melvin STEM Center Expansion will be named in honor of OrthoVirginia!
Thank you to the Caprise family for their generosity and for supporting Jubilee's Tools for Change Capital Campaign! We are excited that one of the five new classrooms to be added to the Astronaut Leland Melvin STEM Center will be named in honor of OrthoVirginia!
January 22, 2026: Thank you to The Al Stroobants Foundation for supporting the Tools for Change Capital Campaign to expand the Astronaut Leland Melvin STEM Center at Jubilee with a new $25,000 grant!
The Al Stroobants Foundation has now contributed a total of $50,000 to the Tools for Change Capital Campaign, and we're thrilled to share that one of the five new classrooms in the expansion will be named in honor of The Al Stroobants Foundation!
We have now raised 607,000 of our $1 Million goal! The $600,000 stickers will be added to our thermometer signs at Jubilee, Bank of the James Fleet, Genworth, and OrthoVirginia over the next few days, and the rocket will continue its climb up the thermometer!
Thank you again to The Al Stroobants Foundation for being a loyal friend to Jubilee and an amazing partner in this campaign!
January 16, 2026: Thank you to the Schewel Charitable Foundation for supporting the Tools for Change Capital Campaign to expand the Astronaut Leland Melvin STEM Center at Jubilee with a generous $10,000 grant! The Schewel Charitable Foundation's and the Schewel Family's longtime support of Jubilee, our children, and our programs is sincerely appreciated.
We have now raised $581,000 of our $1 Million goal! Thank you again to the Schewel Charitable Foundation for being a special part of this journey with Jubilee!
January 7, 2026: Jubilee’s Tools for Change Capital Campaign thermometer signs are going up around town! Here is the sign at Jubilee. We’re so excited to have raised $571,000 towards our $1 million goal to expand the Astronaut Leland Melvin STEM Center at Jubilee! Thank you to everyone who has donated towards the campaign so far!
December 22, 2025: We Did It! Together, our community has raised $50,000 in new donations and pledges for the Tools for Change Capital Campaign to expand the Astronaut Leland Melvin STEM Center at Jubilee! These gifts have been matched dollar-for-dollar by the Easley Foundation, bringing $100,000 in new donations and pledges to the campaign. We are now over halfway to accomplishing our $1 Million goal.
A generous gift of $50,000 from Watt and Jennifer Foster took Jubilee over the finish line of the Easley Challenge Match! We're pleased to share that the new patio at the Astronaut Leland Melvin STEM Center will be named in their honor. Thank you to the Fosters for their generosity and community spirit!
Thank you to everyone who supported the Easley Challenge Match Campaign, and to the Easley Foundation for matching these donations and pledges!
