The Business Beat: Carol Donnelly

This was the lead of the story in the Worcester Telegram & Gazette on January 6, 2009: 
The Worcester Center for Crafts, one of the city’s oldest cultural institutions, has suspended daily operations and may have to close permanently if it cannot raise $1 million by the end of the month.

And this was the headline of the story in the Worcester Telegram & Gazette more than 11 months later on November 25, 2009:

Craft Center comeback: With help from WSC, staff and volunteers, Festival of Crafts returns for 40th year. 

The main savior, according to this T&G story, was Worcester State College, which entered into an alliance with the 154-year-old Craft Center last June.

The agreement included $250,000 a year to rent studio space for college students at the center and a large loan to clear the center's crippling debt.

But the saving graces of a century and a half of community goodwill and a dedicated cadre of staff, students and volunteers can't be discounted.

More than a hundred volunteers have stepped forward to help the Craft Center pull off the festival on the weekend of November 28 and 29.

My guest, Carol Donnelly, is interim director of the Worcester Center for Crafts.