First Annual Kiss the Pig Fundraiser

The first annual “Kiss the Pig” Fundraiser was held on September 12^th, 2020 at Centennial Park in Downtown Bessemer City. The fundraiser was established to help raise money for the Bessemer City Backpack Program. The Backpack Program gets most of their donations from working at the Community Concert and Cruise-In Series; these are held at Centennial Park from April to September. Unfortunately, due to COVID-19 all of the concerts have been cancelled; thus, limiting the donations made to the Backpack Program.

The Bessemer City Backpack Program is a non-profit organization that provides nutritionally-balanced, non-perishable weekend meals to students in Bessemer City. The program feeds on average 40 students at $300 per child a year from Bessemer City Central School. Knowing these numbers, the City of Bessemer City and the Bessemer City Backpack Program teamed up to reach a total fundraising goal of $5,000.

The participants representing the Bessemer City Backpack Program were: Dr.  & Mrs. Robert Crouch, Owner of Whiskey Mill Mike Croft, Michael Meeks, Shilo Canipe, and Srinivas Kudaravalli.

The participants representing the City of Bessemer City are: Mayor Pro Tempore Dan Boling, City Manager James Inman, Chief of BC Police Department Tom Ellis, Recreation Director JoD Franklin, and Economic Development Officer and Human Resources Josh Ross.

With the participation from all of our donors, we were able to not only meet that goal, but raise almost four times the set goal. The City of Bessemer City team raised $11,300 and the Bessemer City Backpack Program team raised $8,000 producing a total of $19,300 of donations towards the Bessemer City Backpack Program.

Bessemer City BackPack Program Coordinator Jimee Crouch said that “The BackPack Program is grateful to the City of Bessemer and their Parks and Recreation department for hosting the fundraising event. We are so pleased that we have such tremendous support for this program. The turnout and donations were far more than we could ever anticipate and we are grateful for those who helped feed our children.”

We would like to thank all of individual donors, businesses, and corporations for allowing us to meet our goal. Some of those corporations and businesses are: A&A Grading & Hauling Inc, Advance Drainage Systems, Bubbles Bath and Beyond, Central Drug, Dhollandia, Enterprise Fleet Management, Hall Brothers Dental Lab, Hunter Douglas, Kingsway, Manufacturing Services Incorporated, McGill Associates, Neill Grading and Construction, Piedmont Paving, Queens, Rock Communications, Sisk-Butler Funeral Home, VC3, Waste Pro, and Whiskey Mill.