LEWISTON — Six weeks after the YWCA of Central Maine teetered on the edge of closure, the Lewiston agency has passed the one-third mark of a $1 million fundraising campaign.

And the effort is growing.

The Lewiston Maineiacs have donated 1,000 tickets to the team’s home games at the Colisee. The YWCA is now selling the $14 tickets for $10 each. Oakhurst Dairy has promised 10 cents of every gallon of milk sold in Androscoggin County during the month of October.

And the three high school swim teams who use the East Avenue facility — Edward Little, St. Dominic and Lewiston — are collaborating over a day-after-Thanksgiving swim-athon to raise money.

Other fundraisers include cookbook sales, pie sales, a card party, and even the auction of a donated 1988 Cadillac Sedan deVille.

“People are coming to us with their ideas and they’re doing it,” said Pam Gallant, the local YWCA’s executive director. “Every day, I’m still amazed.”

The turnaround is shocking, she said.

On Aug. 19, YWCA leaders announced the closure of the 130-year-old chapter. They informed workers and creditors, the parents of its day care children and the die-hard swimmers, who had built a community around their daily exercise.

Five days later — after the closure news had spread and donations began pouring in — the YWCA board reversed its decision.

They set a $1 million goal, aimed at paying off the chapter’s debt and  rehabilitating the nearly 40-year-old East Avenue building to be more energy efficient.

To date, they have raised about $370,000, said Lee Young, president of the YWCA board of directors. More is promised. And the YWCA’s fundraising effort is still being organized, she said.

‘We have gone to our dearest and best friends,” Young said. “Now, we are going to open our arms.”

Volunteers have begun dividing into groups to better target individuals and businesses who might be able to help.

“We had gone from closing to fundraising in just two days,” Young said. “We’re now trying to organize our efforts in a more thoughtful way.”

Meanwhile, the gifts keep coming. And they keep surprising.

The Cadillac came just recently, donated by an elderly woman in the community who put only 48,000 miles on the vehicle in 22 years.

“It was never kept outside until it came here,” Gallant said, standing beside the still-shiny gray car in the agency’s rear parking lot.

The YWCA is still trying to figure out the best way of selling it. A plan ought to be in place by the end of the week and posted on the agency’s Facebook site.

The hope is to keep it simple, the way the Maineiacs sale has worked out, marking down the $14 seats to $10 in hopes of selling all 1,000.

The team wishes it were more, said Bill Schurman, the Maineiacs governor and management consultant.

“We couldn’t write a big check,” Schurman said Monday. “But we have inventory. We just couldn’t not do anything.”

He read about the agency’s troubles and called the YWCA almost immediately after the closure announcement.

“I think it’s very important to support the community that supports us,” he said. “We felt that it was just the right thing for us to do.”

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