A lifelong resident of our town, Jimie aspires to  at some point found a non-profit organization to offer free art lessons and supplies to members of the Staunton community. 

Lifesource is the name that Mrs. Smith would prefer to use for her future non - profit organization, a fascinating experiment of creating a campus of artistic studios for the cultural enrichment  of general pubic of Augusta County to use free of charge. 

The ideal location for Lifesource would be a large farm site which was no longer active. 

The renovation and rehabilitation of historical structures would be a striking example of integrating our 21st Century concepts of recycling and reusing existent resources combined with the traditional values, and permanence, of large - scale philanthropic foundations.

Mrs. Smith envisions a large barn converted into a complex of studios and workspace areas for artists of any genre or socioeconomic status.

Furthermore, she would seek to remodel any silos on the farm site into tall greenhouses for the growing of organic vegetables.

In September of 2003, Miss Smith was appointed to the PEB Board of Directors by de-facto Board Chairman Link Furrow.

In the years since the inclusion of Mrs.Smith, PEB has been in a process of reviewing many different possibilities for physical locations. 

Options such as leasing, or the outright purchasing of a particular site have been examined, and at this point in time the Board is still undecided on what would best serve our Project Associates.  The desire to provide a true long term location for studio space has thus far lead all of us to feel that the purchase of an existing property would be the optimal option. 

Conversion of PEB into a true non-profit entity is a driving force behind our efforts during the remainder of this decade.  Our eventual transition is an aspect of PEB for which Jimie provides an excellent resource and inspiration as a guiding light for the PEB Board of Directors.