KINGS MOUNTAIN — With its $150,000 pledge, the Dover Foundation has pushed the Patrick Senior Center’s Building the Future Campaign into the fourth quarter, Campaign Coordinator Carl Elliott said Friday.
“We are making good progress and have a lot of momentum,” Elliott said during a luncheon at the Patrick Senior Center to honor campaign contributors. “We have raised $788,403 toward the goal of $1,065,000, or 74 percent.”
Elliott expects the campaign to be completed in early 2014, after a seven-month drive.
“I am personally inspired and humbled by all the contributors from every spectrum of the community — city and county government, seniors, couples, staff, industries, small businesses, doctors, dentists, teachers and others,” Elliott said. “Together we form a team that is helping the seniors to have a better quality of life.”
To honor the Dover Foundation for its gift, the planned 4,305-foot expansion of the Patrick Center will be named the “Dover Foundation Annex,” said Kings Mountain Mayor Rick Murphrey, honorary chair of the Building the Future Campaign.
Dover Foundation officers Vice President Kathy Wilson, Secretary Harvey Hamrick Jr. and Executive Director Amanda Scism presented a check for $37,500 to the mayor, as the first installment of a four-year pledge.
“We are thrilled to make this investment in Cleveland County,” Wilson said as she presented the check.
Campaign Co-Chairs include Alex Bell, Kings Mountain Hospital Administrator, longtime civic leader Mary Neisler, and Jim Pridgen, president of Firestone Fibers and Textiles Co.
Patrick Center Director Monty Thornburg outlined the goals and vision for the expansion project. The center plans to build a 25 percent building expansion and a new covered rear entrance to the 17,000-square-foot facility, constructed in 2001. The added space will accommodate current and future growth of the senior population, which is expected to double within the next 10 to 15 years. The building was designed as a multi-purpose facility with a large 500-seat meeting room, and smaller rooms for senior activities, offices for staff, a commercial kitchen and a dining room.
The center was named in honor of the late H. Lawrence Patrick, a successful industrialist who founded Patrick Yarn Mills, whose family was the largest contributor of the center’s initial fundraising campaign.
Thornburg outlined a four-year vision to expand and improve services along with the building expansion, including creating a new “medical services room” in partnership with Kings Mountain Hospital. The Center plans to utilize the new room for more preventive health activities, including health screenings, health education classes, visits by doctors, and an expanded lunch program for seniors, to be overseen by the hospital nutritionist.