Dear Friends:
We’re delighted to update you on our progress this past year! We hope you will continue to support our efforts to complete Phase 3, and we have a new and very exciting challenge … and challenge is the operative word.
But first: The Cumberland Community Foundation (CCF) has once again invited the History Center to participate in its Giving Tuesday program. You may recall that each year in the fall, CCF and other generous, local donors create a pool of funds which CCF will use to amplify your gifts made to local nonprofit organizations during the Giving Tuesday period. This year that period is Monday, November 25, through Wednesday, December 4.
Checks must be made out to CCF and dated and received by CCF by December 4 at 5:00 p.m. IRA distributions and gifts of stock also qualify. Please read the information at this link carefully https://bit.ly/49gojlL and see the sample check at the bottom of this email. In your check’s memo field add “Giving Tuesday – History Center.” If we have your mailing address, you have probably received by now a packet with a pledge card and return envelope addressed to CCF. If your gift won’t be in CCF’s hands by December 4, please discard the return envelope and mail your check, made payable to the History Center, to 824 Branson Street, Fayetteville, NC 28305. You can contribute by credit card at this link beginning November 25 when the site goes live: https://bit.ly/3YWHgGq
You can find the 2024 catalog by clicking on the logo below. We’re very grateful to the donors who created the pool this year:
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- Fayetteville New Car Dealers Association
- Elizabeth “Beth” Keeney
- Carol and Sammy Short
- Daphne and Ray Manning
- Will Gillis
- Board of Directors of Cumberland Community Foundation
- Unrestricted Endowment Funds of CCF
- Three Anonymous Donors
Next, our challenge: In October 2023, we initiated our Education Program, planning to reach each of the 8 districts of the NC Department of Public Instruction once or twice over a 3-year period. As you know, education is the core of our work! To date we have held 4 symposia—in Elizabeth City (District 1), Asheville (District 8), Wilmington (District 2), and Charlotte (District 6). The symposia, hosting selected social studies teachers from counties in each of the districts, are tremendously successful based on the teachers’ reviews.
Each symposium first gauges how 4th, 8th, and 11th grade teachers educate our students in the Civil War and Reconstruction eras. We then discuss the primary sources they may require and how to help them present that information to their classes in a fact-based, objective, and engaging manner. We bring in lecturing scholars and university professors who are specifically knowledgeable about the Civil War or Reconstruction in that district of the state. (Photo: Bellamy Mansion quarters for the enslaved: Teachers from southeast North Carolina attended the Wilmington symposium April 17-18, 2024.)
The State of North Carolina in its generosity is providing most of our capital needs, but funding for our programming comes from supporters like you and from other private sources across the state. We have received a challenge gift from the Anonymous Trust which requires that we not only match their 3-year gift but that all funds go to support Eastern North Carolina educational programming. If this is an area that interests you, we ask you to consider making a donation and designating it for this match. Our Year 1 matching needs are $125,000. We have raised much of that but need more for this year and $325,000 over the next 2 years. You may indicate on your check that your gift is restricted to education (specifically in the eastern third of North Carolina).
If capital funding interests you, we welcome gifts for our new main facility, and we look forward to beginning construction next year!
Finally, construction is nearly complete on the Pavilion, Phase 2 of our project. This will be an impressive structure, and we look forward to using it for our outdoor programming, classes, and special events. The future boardwalk, also part of Phase 2, will parallel the ruins of the former United States Arsenal.
Thank you again for your continuing support. Our best wishes to you and yours for a joyous holiday season.
Chair, Board of Directors
mhealy@healywholesale.com
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