BY DAVID HENDEE
WORLD-HERALD STAFF WRITER

CALLAWAY, Neb. - When the last bowl of soup is served, the last piece of pie eaten and the last Christmas craft sold tonight, the doors will close at the Callaway Community Center.

But not for long.

By 6:30 Thursday morning, this center of the community will again be busy as, well . . . the community center.

Walkers walk. Fitness buffs and physical therapy patients work out. Later in the day, basketball teams from the high school practice on a full-size court. It also serves as host for everything from auctions to anniversaries, church youth sleep-ins to benefit suppers and family reunions to Chamber of Commerce meetings.

The village-owned and operated Callaway Community Center is one of the examples recently cited by the Nebraska Community Foundation of how rural towns can construct or renovate facilities - and sustain them - with charitable endowments.

It begins with an attitude of self-sufficiency and pride, said Brian Gardner, a schoolteacher and counselor who is chairman of the Village Board.

"Our community has always been a town that thought of itself as a little larger than it is," he said. "We've always had an optimistic outlook."

Callaway is a farming and ranching town north of Cozad. It's home to 637 people. Townsfolk in the Sand Hills village raised cash and pledges of $550,000 to construct a new community center after fire gutted the old hall in the winter of 1998.

The Village of Callaway started the campaign in 2000 with a $100,000 pledge if the community at large raised the remaining $450,000.

More than $258,000 has been received, with the remaining $200,000 in pledges to be received by the end of this month and next year.

So far, 275 donors have made gifts or pledges. The largest individual donation is $30,000. Eleven other gifts or pledges are between $10,000 and $25,000. More than 130 donors made commitments ranging from $500 to $5,000.

Jeff Yost, executive vice president of the Nebraska Community Foundation, said the capital campaign is an excellent example of a grass-roots community-based effort. Seventy percent of all funds raised and 60 percent of all donors live in Callaway.

Tom Uden, a member of the campaign committee, said giving back to the community is a tradition in Callaway.

"It's infectious," he said. "Attitudes can be infectious both good and bad. If everybody's sitting down at the coffee shop complaining about how bad things are, pretty soon everybody will have that attitude. If a core group looks at what needs to be done and how to get it done, that attitude also is infectious. But it doesn't happen overnight."

In addition to the community center, residents have generously given over the years to endowments established for the hospital and school, as well as to a senior citizens center, a nursing home, the library and other projects.

"Having these facilities in your town helps sustain a community and gives people a sense that this is a good place," Gardner said.

Gardner said he recently read of a Nebraskan who left a sizable estate to another city's parks and recreation department, instead of to his hometown. The hometown did not have a fund affiliated with the Nebraska Community Foundation.

"That could have happened here," Gardner said. "We want to make certain that people are aware that we have a foundation that they can give to."

The Callaway Community Foundation Fund is one of more than 30 across the state that have partnerships with cities, counties or schools. In many cases, Yost said, the projects would not have been feasible for the local governments to finance on their own without the additional money provided through charitable gifts.

The community center opened 15 months ago on the site of the old hall and on adjacent Main Street property.

Today the 11,250-square-foot facility opens its doors for the village's annual Old-Fashioned Christmas event. A craft show and a soup and pie supper at the community center bring people to town for shopping. Free baby-sitting is available at the library and Santa makes an appearance.

"We have a lot of things that you might not expect in a town our size," Gardner said.