Now, the Coalition is turning to the community in its own time of need. The nonprofit organization announced this week that it is launching a fundraising campaign to raise $600,000 to build a $450,000 facility and establish a $150,000 endowment.
The Coalition currently operates out of an old church building on West Pennsylvania Avenue in Southern Pines. But Caroline Eddy, the coalition's executive director, said more space is needed to continue assisting an increasing number of clients.
"We're in a beautiful and charming former rectory of Our Lady of Victory Catholic Church, and we love our building," Eddy said. "But we've been in the same building for 20 years, and we have 20 to 30 people come in for help every day. It worked well when were seeing 10 to 15 people every day."
With a 12-seat waiting room and two interview rooms, space is limited. Storage for the food and clothing the Coalition donates to families in need is over capacity.
A move to a larger facility is necessary, said Jon Crane, president of the Coalition Board of Directors.
"We're just bulging at the seams where we are," Crane said. "Frankly, we've just run out of room."
The new building will be constructed on a two-acre tract on West Indiana Avenue, part of about nine acres donated to the town of Southern Pines by the late Voit Gilmore and his wife, Jody Gilmore.
Currently, the town owns the Coalition buildings, and the group leases the space for $1 a year. The plan is for the Coalition to own the new building and lease the land from the town for $1 a year for the next 20 years, with the option for 10 more.
Marty Hefner, who is a member of the Coalition board and chairwoman of the fundraising committee, said the planned building will increase the group's abilities to serve the community.
"We presently have 2,000 square feet for client services, located on West Pennsylvania Avenue, and our new facility will triple the amount of space we'll have for client services," Hefner said.
The new building will include four interview rooms, meeting space, a break room for volunteers and more storage space for perishable and nonperishable items.
Last year, Eddy said, the Coalition helped 4,736 families, including $190,859 in monetary assistance, 9,341 instances of giving food and 5,151 donations of clothing.
"It's helping a lot of low-income families who are struggling to make it right now," Eddy said.
The Coalition's motto this year, Eddy said, is "more for more for Moore" -- more resources for more people in Moore County. The fundraising campaign is named "Imagine the Possibility."
"We thought it adequately mirrored what we wanted to do with the campaign in terms of 'imagine what we might be able to offer our clients in the future,'" Hefner said.
Part of the Coalition's vision is a steady stream of funding through the establishment of a $150,000 endowment.
"What we're trying to do is to find ways that we can establish a little bit more reliable and dependable source of funding for our future operations," Crane said. "We hope the endowment then becomes a living thing that we can grow with contributions over the years to come."
Eddy hopes to expand the services offered by the Coalition to address problems before they begin.
"We are really looking forward to the future," she said, "because we want to do more to prevent the situations people find themselves in by workshops and more mentoring and tutoring � and we can only do that if we have more space."
The Coalition will maintain its current space on West Pennsylvania Avenue as a resale business but move its client services to the new building on West Indiana.
Donors to the fundraising campaign can designate their money to the building or the endowment; otherwise, the money will be split between the two.
"Every dollar that we take in, 25 percent would go the endowment, 75 percent to the building fund," Hefner said. "And we just look for it to give us a solid foundation for the future and also to be able to help with traditional expenses that we will incur with the new building."
Among the expenses might be those that the Coalition did not expect.
Crane said that as the organization has "gotten more into the property," it has realized that "the existing sewer lines aren't adequate � new ones are going to have to be laid."
"The road ends right where our property begins, so it'll be a matter of extending Indiana Avenue," Crane said. "Those were costs, quite frankly, we weren't counting on when we began talking about the campaign, so we'll just have to see how that all shakes out in the future."
In the meantime, the Coalition is ready to move forward with its plans.
"We're going to start the building just as soon as the city says go," he said.
For more information, contact Caroline Eddy at (910) 693-1600 or coalition@pinehurst.net.
Kirsten Beattie, an intern from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, can be reached at (919) 619-4327.
