Up and Coming Weekly is a weekly publication in Fayetteville, NC and Fort Bragg, NC area offering local news, views, arts, entertainment and community event and business information.
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10 UCW DECEMBER 28, 2022 - JANUARY 3, 2023 WWW.UPANDCOMINGWEEKLY.COM JASON BRADY, CityView Today. COMMENTS? Editor@upandcom- ingweekly.com. 910-484-6200. NEWS Cumberland Communty Foundation rasies roughly $1.8 million in Giving Tuesday campaign by MICHAEL FUTCH, CityView Today e Cumberland Community Foundation raised approximately $1.8 million in this year's Giving Tuesday campaign. Coupled with the $575,000 local match, that means nearly $2.4 million was raised for nonprofits in Fayetteville and Cumberland County. "It's a very generous community,'' said Mary Holmes, the president and chief executive officer of the Cumberland Community Foundation. "We may not be the wealthiest com- munity, but I'm sure we're the most generous." is was the third year that the foundation has participated in the Giving Tuesday campaign and over- seen the donations from Cumberland County. Seventy-six nonprofits participated this year compared with 65 last year, Holmes said. e money was raised over 10 days, she said. Holmes said the financial gifts ranged in size from $10 to $100,000. "Two anonymous donors gave us $100,000," she said. "Most of the gifts were $100,'' she said. "We're very proud of that. Our goal is to help people who have any ability to give to support these chari- table organizations." Overall, Holmes said, 3,885 gifts were received from more than 2,000 donors of the different organizations. "Our campaign is only for our grant- ees who decided to participate," said Holmes. "So, that was 76 charitable organizations that decided to par- ticipate. So, we're fundraising just for those organizations." In terms of individual organizations, Cape Fear Regional eatre received the most money, said Holmes, who declined to divulge the amount. Other organizations that ranked high in receiving donations included the Cape Fear Botanical Garden, the Fayetteville Police Foundation, the CARE Clinic and the N.C. History Center on the Civil War, Emancipa- tion and Reconstruction. e CityView News Fund also participated this year. According to the foundation, the family of Eleanor and Raymond Man- ning, the Fayetteville Area New Car Dealers Association, Elizabeth M. "Beth" Keeney, Ramon Yarborough, the Cumberland Community Founda- tion, board alumni and an anonymous donor joined together to offer the cumulative $575,000 to match the gifts throughout the campaign. e matching funds amplify the original donation. Giving Tuesday — which is often referred to as a global day of generos- ity — was held from 9 a.m. Nov. 21 through 5 p.m. Nov. 30. e donations will be directed toward "a local non- profit working to improve Fayetteville and Cumberland County for those who live here," the foundation states. e foundation put out a catalog featuring the nonprofit organizations participating in the campaign. "We run the campaign over a 10-day window," Holmes said. "If you think about it, we have so many charitable organizations here in this community doing fabulous work that really don't have any fundraising staff. And the Community Foundation is really good at raising money, and so why wouldn't we use that skill to help these smaller organizations support their work?" "We have a really good relationship with donors," she said, "this is a good role for the Community Foundation." e local campaign has seen dona- tions grow each year. In 2020, the campaign raised more than $872,000. A match of $300,000 brought the total to more than $1.17 million, Holmes said. In 2021, nearly $1.25 million was raised before the match of $400,000 was added for a total of more than $1.65 million, she said. Giving Tuesday dates back to 2012 with the mission to help organiza- tions raise money, Holmes said. e Cumberland Community Foundation determined in 2020 that no one was involved locally in the Giving Tuesday campaign. e foundation changed that. "We realized that local charities were not participating in an inter- national effort to increase giving," Holmes said, "so we decided to create an online giving catalog on our web- site and invite nonprofit organizations to participate." MICHAEL FUTCH, CityView Today. COMMENTS? Editor@upandcomingweekly. com. 910-484-6200. Parking to be key part of events center planning by JASON BRADY, CityView Today e head of Cumberland County's engineering and infrastructure department on Dec. 19 assured the county commissioners that parking for the planned Crown Event Center will be adequate once the facility is completed in 2025. Jermaine Walker told members of the Board of Commissioners' Crown Event Center Committee that the county is undertaking a parking study. e committee includes Commis- sioners Jeannette Council, Jimmy Keefe and Glenn Adams. Board Chair- woman Toni Stewart and Commis- sioner Veronica Jones also attended Monday's meeting. Walker said the center committee has considered parking throughout the site selection process and knows that building the Center next to the County Courthouse would result in a reduction of 203 parking spaces in the courthouse's front parking lot. He said county officials are explor- ing "parking alternatives" that would be within walking distance of the new theater and expo center. Assistant County Manager Brian Haney said that although he could not divulge specifics, the county is working on options that would result in more parking spaces than are cur- rently available at the courthouse. Walker said the county is doing a detailed parking study to deter- mine the impact of the site selection in terms of displaced parking and analyzing how a downtown location would affect parking capacity. Walker said the parking study results should come before the board in February. e committee also met the Ew- ingCole architectural design team. George Bushey, a programmer and planner for EwingCole, said the team will be back in January to start its pro- gramming phase. Bushey said in late February, Ewing- Cole will conduct a "concept work- shop" to determine what the facility will look like, how big it will be, and how it will fit into the neighborhood. "It will be an intensive January and February," Bushey said. Bushey said the events center needs to be attractive to people who will buy tickets to events there and to promot- ers who need to come to Cumberland County and make money. Committee member Glenn Adams said an African American Museum is planned nearby and its organizers need to be involved in the planning process for the events center. Walker said a contractor informa- tion session was held Dec. 6 and more than 50 companies nationwide participated. "It was very successful," Walker said. Walker said that by Feb. 24, he hopes to have a short list of contrac- tors to be considered for the job and conduct interviews March 6-10. An advertisement for contractors will be posted in the county's website, on a state portal for minority firms, on social media and in news releases.