Community Fund Launches New “Light Up Lives” Project

The Community Fund of the South Cumberland Plateau is offering holiday donation cards for purchase at many area businesses as a creative alternative to empty holiday gift giving. For a $10 donation, folks will receive a “Light Up Lives” card that reads: “A gift to the Community Fund of the South Cumberland Plateau has been made in your honor.” The person who purchased the card then fills in the name of the family member or friend they want to remember and mails the card in the envelope provided.

“This is truly a way to give the gift of community,” said Bonnie McCardell, the Light Up Lives project chair. “A donation to the Community Fund is a simple way to remember people during this season while investing in those who live on the Cumberland Plateau.”

During the last two years, the Community Fund’s grants to schools and nonprofit organizations have changed lives, McCardell said. 

“The grant recipients have begun new grass-roots initiatives in health, jobs and education. 

Grants have helped well-established nonprofits—the Mountain Goat Trail, Blue Monarch, Mountain T.O.P., Folks at Home and many more; and they have also encouraged those with ideas and energy to step forward and launch new projects,” she said. “The Light Up Lives holiday cards are a perfect way for people to support the Community Fund during this season of giving.”

Light Up Lives cards will be available for purchase at businesses across the Plateau. Look for cards at the Blue Chair, Citizens State Bank, Citizens Tri-County Bank, Dutch Maid Bakery, the Grundy County Courthouse, the Grundy Heritage Center, Julia’s Fine Foods, the Monteagle Mountain Chamber of Commerce, the Monteagle Inn and Southern Community Bank. 

“We are pleased with the many donors who give to the Community Fund,” said Chair Scott Parrish. “And we hope that offering these holiday cards will be a way to include many more in our ranks of supporters. “Though $10 is a small amount, when you use it to purchase a card, it makes a big statement about our community and how we care for each other.”