The community-led drive to buy Mt. Bachelor ski area from Powdr Corp. continues to move forward.

Donations of more than $39,000 were brought in, more than the $35,000 needed to pay accountants and lawyers who have been hired to form a corporation that would be needed to oversee the purchase and eventual ownership of the ski area.

A lineup has also been set for a community kickoff event at 3 p.m. Oct. 12 at Drake Park. Bend Mayor Melanie Kebler, co-founders Dan Cochrane and Chris Porter, as well as Tom Healy of Mt. Bachelor’s founding family, will talk about the plan to acquire the ski area and operate it for the benefit of the community.

Speakers will highlight the resort’s role in the community as an economic driver, its symbolic value as a natural resource and why the effort is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to “ensure Mt. Bachelor is stewarded in alignment with its community’s interests in the long term,” according to a media advisory sent by Mt. Bachelor Community Inc.

In August, Powdr Corp. announced it intended to sell Mt. Bachelor and two other ski properties. Powdr Corp., the Utah-based corporation that has owned Mt. Bachelor since 2001, said it could take six months or longer for a sale to go through.

So far no offers have come forward, according to Stacey Hutchinson, Powdr Corp. vice president of communications.

“Interested parties can email communications@powdr.com to be put in touch with JP Morgan Chase and go through the process,” Hutchinson said in an email.

The company has already sold Killington Resort and Pico Mountain in Vermont, the largest mountain resort in New England, to a group of local passholders, the Associated Press reported. It is retaining its ownership in Copper Mountain in Colorado and Snowbird resort in Utah, as well as the Woodward brand that includes camps, ski mountain centers and two national park concession contracts.