Despite the statewide dissolution of the Montana Lewis and Clark Legacy Campaign, local Lewis and Clark commemoration projects will continue as planned, although funding lags.

In Helena, fund-raising is under way for construction of a permanent exhibit in the Great Northern Town Center that re-traces the journey of the famous explorers across Montana.

The Lewis and Clark Experience, as it has been titled, will include 19 installations, many of them commissioned bronze sculptures.

The project comes with an almost $900,000 price tag. Since 2001, about 80 percent of the funds have been secured, according to Blair Williams, account executive at Big Fish PR, which was hired to complete fundraising for the project.

The project was never on the list to receive funds from the now-dissolved Lewis and Clark Legacy Campaign, but about $250,000 still needs to be raised before Helena's Lewis and Clark Experience will be complete, Williams said. Before construction can begin, some $50,000 will need to be raised by the end of August.

Almost half n about $488,000 n in funding for the open-air interpretive center came from City of Helena Tax Increment Financing (TIF). Williams said that the $488,184 in TIF funds has to be matched by donations or the project won't see the money. If that match doesn't happen in approximately 12 to 18 months from the initial allocation, the TIF money can be lost. Her firm has a projected deadline of Sept. 30 to have that goal met, Williams added.

The tight fund-raising timeline is to provide enough construction time to have the project complete by next summer n 200 years after Lewis and Clark made their way up the Missouri and through the Helena area.

"We need to have this ready for dedication by July 9 next year," she added.

The firm is also seeking another $100,000 dollars for next year's local bicentennial commemoration events.

Williams' company was hired June 15, and will receive a 20 percent commission on all the money raised by their efforts. Initially, planners for the Lewis and Clark Experience project expected grants to provide most, if not all, of the funds necessary for the project, Williams said. When that looked like it wasn't going to happen, they contracted with Big Fish and started looking for private and corporate donors.

If the funding doesn't come in, the project will be scaled back, Williams said.

"This is going to bring so many tourism dollars and we don't want to lose that," she added. "We're trying not to go there yet."

According to the Clint Blackwood, executive director of the Montana Lewis and Clark Bicentennial Commission, fund-raising has been a challenge for almost every group seeking funds to commemorate the bicentennial. The dissolution of the Montana Lewis and Clark Legacy Campaign was unfortunate, Blackwood said.

"But what we found out through all this is that a lot of folks like to give at a local level."

Reporter Laura Tode can be reached at 447-4081 or by e-mail at laura.tode@helenair.com.