The "Curtain Call" campaign has until June 2004 to raise the remaining $700,000 for the project, but more than $6.7 million has already been raised.

Those involved with the PAL Center have pointed to the effort as one made possible through the work of specific groups in the community, including those with virtually no relationship to the school.

"I have been in capital campaigns before, so I was pleased to see the energy from people coming together," said Linda Rossen, board member for the Saratoga High School Foundation, which is in charge of the building project. Usually, Rossen said, parents are the primary donors for school-related fundraisers—"This is a whole different thing. We got people who otherwise wouldn't have been pulled together."

While downtown businesses such as Patrick James, Plumed Horse, Bella Saratoga and The Basin contributed funds, Rossen said other organizations pooled together $2,500 to purchase a seat in the performing arts facility. Rossen's husband wrote a letter to physicians and dentists he knew, who in turn bought a seat, as did the Community Hospital of Los Gatos. "This is the kind of 'Yes' we got and response we got," Rossen said.

This community effort, Rossen said, has never before happened in Saratoga. "I'm so thrilled about this," she said. "Once people saw someone doing it, it just touched a lot of them."

"The whole thing of community just evolved," said board member Paula Cappello. The foundation was faced with "bright ideas by individuals looking for creative ways to fundraise."

Cappello herself is one of those individuals. A marketing professional with no children at Saratoga High, she was invited to a concert in the high school gym in 2001. "I leaned over and said, 'These are the worst acoustics I have ever heard. These kids deserve something better,' " Cappello said. Rossen overheard her comments and mentioned the PAL Center campaign, and Cappello quickly jumped aboard.

"It was amazing to me that a community as dedicated and committed to education ... didn't have an auditorium," Cappello said. "It was such a good cause, to build a facility that seemed a basic part of a school."

The campaign also included target outreach to specific groups of parents. Parent Linda Allen contacted those who, like herself, had children in band and orchestra. Allen said a team of eight called families and sent weekly emails to those families. The orchestra and band parents ultimately committed to donating $50,000 for the orchestra pit, which will include a plaque commemorating the instrumental music families.

Allen grew up in a community "that saw the high school band as their band, the high school orchestra as their orchestra," she said. All residents attended the school's plays and musicals, and Allen is hoping the same will occur with the construction of the PAL Center.

"I'm very aware of the difference a facility makes in the music program," Allen said. "I really see it having the potential to become a focal point in the community, celebrate the diverse community we have in Saratoga."

Similar to the focus on band and orchestra parents, volunteers reached out to specific ethnicities and immigrants. Indian families have made a commitment to funding the PAL Center's kitchen, while events have been held to promote the Chinese community's involvement with the project.

Los Gatos­Saratoga Union High School District board member Cynthia Chang had just been a donor to PAL until mid-April. "Then I thought, 'I want to get more Asians involved in this project,' " Chang said. Chang personally called Asian families, sometimes using her native Mandarin language to explain the project's benefits, and coordinated breakfast meetings for the community. "I even volunteered to pick up their checks, because I thought the timing was so critical," Chang said.

"Overall, the Chinese community, we value education a lot," Chang said. "[The PAL Center] is just one more thing to improve the facilities for education—we're working toward a better goal benefiting everyone."

Following Chang's lead, Shinku Sharma sent letters to the Indian residents of Saratoga "basically striking a chord in people's hearts." Sharma said the letter was focused on parents, but "if they're not parents, letting them know that it would be a theater in the community for them."

Through the letters and follow-up phone calls, Sharma's effort has collected more than $30,000 of the $50,000 needed to build the kitchen. "We feel very confident that we are going to get there," Sharma said. "We want to beat that goal of $50,000."

Rossen called the ethnic outreach a "friendship and expansion of cultural education. It's almost as if we wanted to wrap our arms around each other and join in a circle." Rossen added, "It did bring me closer to more people than I ever thought possible."

The successful drive to raise 90 percent of the building funds culminated in a June 10 groundbreaking ceremony. Held at the corner of Herriman Avenue and Saratoga­Sunnyvale Road—the site of the PAL Center—the event was attended by school officials, city leaders and local children.

"I can't believe we're actually doing this," said Saratoga High Principal Kevin Skelly, a driving force of the project. "All of us who have been involved in this process know that there were many times when we didn't know if we'd get here."

Skelly thanked volunteers, including foundation President Bill Barmeier.

"Not many times in your life do you get to do something that's unmistakably good," Skelly said.

A day later, the foundation launched its "Curtain Call" campaign. According to Cappello, the campaign—while much longer and not as intense as previous fundraising efforts—will continue to focus on different sects of people.

To make a contribution or receive more information about the PAL Center, call 408.867.3411, ext.405, or visit http://www.shsf.org.