Lee Donates to Boys & Girls Club

Lee Mechanical, in partnership with more than 20 of its vendors and suppliers, is donating $30,000 to the Shirley Madrigrano & Natalie Lee Arts Foundation. The check — along with another $7,200 from the Kenosha Country Club, from a recent fundraiser — was presented Tuesday.

For Bob Lee Jr., Lee Mechancial’s President, it is the latest in a series of significant contributions to the foundation he and Joe Madrigrano Jr. founded in 2016 to honor their mothers by supporting arts programming at the Boys & Girls Club of Kenosha. “Theater, band, music, let’s provide opportunities for young people,” Lee said.

Corinne Ness — Carthage College’s Dean of Arts and Humanities and a music professor — led the program. “The projects are designed to allow the students at the Boys and Girls Club an art experience they might not otherwise have access to,” Ness said. “It provides them opportunities to be creative, to explore different creative arts fields that maybe they haven’t explored before. That’s a valuable thing for the Boys and Girls Club, and it’s a valuable thing for the arts.”

Lee likened it to the reality of young athletes, where there is no shortage of travel teams and one-on-one training available for those wanting to build their skills and refine their talents — for those who can afford it. “So many people … don’t have the funds to do it,” he said. The foundation seeks to fill that void, with a goal of supporting BGCK arts programs and allow more students to be exposed to the arts.