Introduction
At the Dec. 18 Council meeting, representatives from Glenn Raven Mills announced a new public-private initiative called the New Leaf Society.
New Leaf Society, a non profit corporation, is forming under the leadership of Allen Gant, Jr., President and CEO of Glen Raven, Inc. This society’s mission will be to enhance the quality of life and increase the economic prosperity by the beautification of our community through public and private cooperation. New Leaf Society will work with the City of Burlington, NCDOT and Duke Power in selecting and designing areas for landscaping and improvements. The goal will be to raise at least $100,000.00 per year from private individuals and corporations and Glen Raven has pledged to match $100,000.00 per year for three years to get this project launched. This money will be used to for improvements all across the city and the hope is to expand into all areas of Alamance County. There will be no tax dollars used; this will be all private money.
The officers of New Leaf Society are Allen Gant, Chairman, Rett Davis, President, Bruce Kowalski, Vice President, Janice Burgess, Secretary and Tom McGowen, Treasurer.
You may get information by calling Janice Burgess at Glen Raven, 336-586-1181.
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Thrown by the private sector that potentially can have wonderful benefits, we think for the community.
So again, thanks for coming.
Thank you very much.
Help appreciated by a good morning morning.
Turn welcome to a new position.
Thank you.
Thank you for all that you gonna be doing for us.
Appreciate we're here to ask for you all to share with us for a few minutes and a new opportunity for the city in which private individuals companies.
And the city can come together to work towards the beautification of the entire city.
The opportunity that we have is the Glen Raven has agreed to put in a hundred thousand dollars a year for the first three years, and that money will be matched by private donations coming into the new leaf society, which is a 501c3 organization, nonprofit organization founded for the purpose of the beautification of this County it's, a wonderful opportunity for the city, the county individuals in government and companies to come together with one thing in mind.
And that is how to make this a more beautiful place to live reside work and enjoy I.
Guess? One of the comments that we all received when HondaJet was making their decisions about coming into into burlington, is the entrance to burlington and looking around through the town and how we make this a more beautiful place for their employees to be in to work.
My family has been here for about 200 years, our company's been here for 127 years.
And we think it's a terrific opportunity for for all these different groups to come together into one organization that will work with the different elements and and I when I say, different elements, I feel sure there'll be a lot of work that have to be done with do t.
A lot of work done with the city and Harrell has been terrific in helping us.
Get started we're having our first board meeting tonight.
And we have about 25 or 30 board members.
We were really lucky very fortunate to find rhett Davis, who was looking for a little something to do and I'm.
I hope that we're gonna be able to fill him up to you the truth.
But you know, rhett is working this in this community for his entire life and brings an air professionalism to this this group and we're certainly interested in doing things that are only indigenous to this area.
We have no interest in putting palm trees anywhere.
And we want.
And we also realize it make sure you just add them on equal angle.
One that's, right? But and certainly it is as we've all experienced the drought there in a particular care of the types of plantings that need to be done to make this a more beautiful community at the same time, understand the maintenance that will need to be taken care of going forward.
So a lot of care and design and work has to go into those kinds of decisions.
And we realize that, but again, it's a great opportunity for the city, private individuals and industry to come together and not a single dime of money will come from the taxpayer.
This is all going to be private donations dedicated towards making.
This would be a more beautiful place to live and to work one of the things we do and Raven is try to figure out ways to reduce stress.
And we put in rose gardens, and we put in nice windows, so that people enjoy their work and their surroundings.
And we think the same thing is true here in Burlington.
And how do we make it a more beautiful place to work in to be if that is? In fact, the case, then we believe it will enhance the opportunities for further growth and prosperity of the community.
It will enhance the opportunity of bringing in other companies that will want to reside here and most important, our residents will enjoy the scenery of the of the city and communities that are involved in elements money in making it a more beautiful place to be so we're, not asking for anything, but to bring you to make you aware that we, in fact, have formed this organization we have a legal entity now and will begin to solicit solicitations, very very shortly.
We will be having a fundraiser in the next 30 days and Glen Raven is is well prepared to put its hundred thousand dollars into the pot for the first three years.
Obviously, we would love for it to become self-sustaining as we go forward.
And then there could be projects.
We talked about this the other day in which it might require two years of of contribution, because the project may be a half million dollars, but with the right type of planning, but that's, very feasible as well.
We've got a lot of professionals with rhett leading the charge.
And the city has been very kind to volunteer some of their brain power to help us.
Make sure we get the right the right places and choosing the right locations in which to beautify.
We've got to think quite frankly, with the city.
But what type of entrance do we want to have for the city Allen the interstate and then and then where are there opportunities all over the city to make it a more beautiful place to live and work? So it's, a fun and exciting thing we've had nothing.
But tremendous response.
We've had lots of people calling us and saying, how do we get involved? How do we contribute I, don't think we'll have any difficulty whatsoever and raising the money, and it just be a matter of us all working together to make sure we spend it the right way for the long-term value of the residents of the city it's, a it's, an exciting time, an exciting opportunity, and it should be very good for everybody involved.
I, can't, see any negative things about it.
And certainly there there issues that will come up I feel sure as I mentioned before the d-o-t and traffic allocations and where traffic is directed, and those traffic patterns change over time mean, the city grows in one way or another way.
And so we want to make sure that we embrace those changes and embrace those things that take place in the growth of the city, which are extremely important.
So what we ask is that we don't need anything except that, hopefully the city will be very willing to work.
This organization, the future to make sure that we we stay on track.
And again, we're deeply appreciative of Harold, Owens direction and help with us from that in and we'll need obviously isn't his time and energy to to make sure we're on the right target.
And there may come a time when when the city may decide to do a particular thing and would want us to be involved to fund the planting of those particular areas, we would be very happy to look at that as part of the process, going forward I could imagine if somebody was recruited like HondaJet and gosh, how do we figure out how to do this over here or that over there? And this is where private again, private money is put to the use of the entire community.
So that's kind of it in a nutshell and Glen Raven will will also be janice burgess who works for Glen Raven will put in the secretary, the formal secretary of the organization and will be paying for the expense of those kinds of things that have to take place.
So for the organization to work in to prosper and no other that's, pretty simple straightforward and we're gonna have a lot of fun with it and it'll be exciting for the city.
So we hope that you all will enjoy.
And we certainly would welcome any.
And all of you at all of our meetings, absolutely wide open and would enjoy your participation as we go forward.
Yeah, what is the communication line? Mr.
Gant in his group versus the city? Well, it's, jeff parsons and daniel Shofner I'm said, he stabbed and working the valley and Janice, I mean, I'll be involved on the board, pretty much direct phone calls with talk as we speak.
Because frankly, this is I think you start with hondajet with the banking industry and it's kind of it's nice to see the private sector stepping up to be part of efforts to better the community like this and it's.
This is something we hope we can continue to defy.