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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!