Lucile Hutaff would have reveled in this moment of those who for more than four decades have perpetuated her vision for better lives in this community.
Cumberland County was home, and the Cumberland Community Foundation was her dream for the best of our days.
“I’m not giving,” the late physician said on Aug. 29, 1980, when Hutaff donated $576,840 of her stock as seed monies for the foundation. “I am returning to the community.”
Today, the foundation is the acclaimed philanthropic charitable nonprofit in this community.
“We have great news,” Max Weinstein, chairperson of the foundation’s finance and stewardship committee, told about 200 donors and guests who turned out Thursday evening for the Cumberland Community Foundation “Founders & Friends” celebration at the Cape Fear Botanical Garden.
Maddie Kellogg delivered the record-setting news.
“Our assets are $141 million,” said Kellogg, donor services manager for the foundation.
And just to be precise — $140,657,381.19, with 80% endowed — per the foundation’s annual fiscal report that ended June 30.
“An all-time high for your community foundation,” Kellogg, 30, told the audience. “This growth will enable our community foundation to support quality of life improvements in many areas. The foundation received over $8 million in gifts and awarded $7.3 million in grants and scholarships.”
Of the gifts, Kellogg said, was a $674,000 estate benevolence from a local resident for the foundation’s creation of what will be known as the Anonymous Community Endowment.
“That is a very generous and large gift,” Kellogg said. “But more importantly, that gift was an unrestricted endowment. This means that the Cumberland Community Foundation will invest the gift and award the investment income to the best opportunities and greatest needs every year. Conservatively estimating, that endowment will distribute over a million dollars in support to local projects over the next 25 years, and the endowment fund will grow to $1,250,000.”
That, Kellogg said, is the “power” of the endowment.
“What a vision gift for our community,” Kellogg said. “Yes, one person can make a difference. You can make a difference.”
Among other annual milestones, according to the foundation, were a record 678 donor funds; a grant of $1,020,000 awarded to Fayetteville Technical Community College to provide education and support services that will lead to a reduction in generational poverty in the county; $1,164,000 in new and renewed college scholarships; distribution of $1,224,950 for local nonprofits from designation endowments financial support for a record 1,351 children to attend the Summertime Kids camp; and the Women’s Giving Circle allocating more than $821,000 in support of women and their families.
What began in 1980 with Lucile Hutaff’s generosity of $576,840 for the beginnings of the foundation on this night has grown to $140,657,381.19, and the numbers are worth repeating.
“That is up from $123,605,050.74 last year,” said Mary Holmes, president and chief executive officer for the foundation since 1997. “We received over 5,000 gifts ranging from $10 to $1 million and we had great investment results in the last year,” including $2.5 million from the 10-day Giving Tuesday of 2023 in support for 79 local charitable organizations.
“The good thing is most of our assets are endowed, meaning these funds will be invested and that income will be distributed to improve the quality of life here — every year — forever. That is the amazing part of an endowment. The community foundation is like a trust fund to make the whole community better.”
“I am convinced that this is the most generous community in North Carolina,” Holmes said. “ … We are proud that people of any ability to give are engaging with the community foundation to make life better for all.”
Celebrating Patricia Collie
On an evening of celebration of dollars, benevolence and the giving hearts of a community, Thursday was a night when the foundation recognized the work of Patricia Collie, who received the Mary Lynn McCree Bryant Leadership Award named for the former two-time foundation board chairwoman who promised the late Lucile Hutaff, who had been diagnosed with lung cancer, the foundation would forever be a part of the community.
Collie was a founding board member of Connections of Cumberland County, helping organize, develop and raise funds for the 501(c)(3) nonprofit that operates the only walk-in Day Resource Center in downtown Fayetteville that serves single women and children who are homeless or at-risk of becoming homeless.
“It’s been a pleasure to work with the Women’s Giving Circle and Connections of Cumberland County for homeless women and children,” Collie said before receiving the honor from foundation board member Vera Bell. “We wanted to help women and children in need.”
The Women’s Giving Circle is a program of the Cumberland Community Foundation.
“The Women’s Giving Circle is 137 women who give to the fund,” Holmes said, “and then decide together how to use it to make life better for women in need.”
Connections of Cumberland County was conceived in 2010, according to its website, and opened in October 2014 with a mission of helping single women achieve independence and self-sufficiency, and enhance their children’s futures.
“It’s a huge surprise,” said the 67-year-old Collie, who previously worked with the Child Advocacy Center that serves physically, sexually and mentally abused children. “And Mary Lynn Bryan is such a role model. I’ve had the pleasure of getting to know her. What an inspirational role model. This means a lot. I don’t take this honor lightly.”
Bryan said Collie’s work has not gone unnoticed by the foundation.
“She is committed, dedicated and focused,” Bryan said.
Epilogue
Thursday evening was long ago from June 30, 1987, when Lucile Hutaff joined with Mary Lynn Bryan on their morning ritual of walking along Winterlochen Road, and pleading with Bryan to see that the Cumberland Community Foundation always would be a part of this community.
“I want you to do this for me,” Hutaff told Bryan, “and for this community.”
Lucile West Hutaff died at age 75 on July 1, 1987, a day after her plea.
On this evening of historic celebration, Mary Lynn Bryan could feel Lucile Hutaff’s presence.
“She would say, ‘You are an amazing community,’” Bryan said. “She would say, ‘You have exceeded my dreams of what you can do for everybody in this community.’ It was important to her for everybody to have a chance to help the community for the good of it.”
Bill Kirby Jr. can be reached at billkirby49@gmail.com or 910-624-1961.
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