Annual Fireside Fund fundraiser is dedicated to 2 local businessmen
The Sumter Item is starting its annual Fireside Fund this week for the winter season in a continued effort to help locals keep their houses heated when the weather dips.
Each year between November and Memorial Day, the newspaper asks readers to donate money in support of the campaign. Every penny is donated to Sumter United Ministries, which uses the money to help its clients with heating final notice bills, propane access, housing updates and other efforts to help provide safe, cost-effective home heating.
SUM is an emergency and life-rebuilding nonprofit based in faith. While they provide services such as clothing and food donations, educational outreach, a free medical clinic and other basic and quality-of-life necessities, access to heat during the winter months is a consistent and critical need.
Fireside Fund raised more than $27,000 last year, and Item readers have graciously opened their wallets to the tune of $1.8 million since 1969.
Updates will be published weekly each Wednesday and will detail a different story of impact from a SUM staffer along with donations from Item readers. Donations can be made in memory or honor of specific people or groups or anonymously.
Each year, The Item's leadership team picks a person who has recently passed away to which the year's campaign will be dedicated. The person honored is someone who made a positive impact in the community.
This year, Sumter lost two stalwarts in local business and community support on the same day, Billy McLeod of Piggly Wiggly and Carl Simpson III of Simpson Hardware Co. Fireside Fund fundraising will be in honor of them both this year.
McLeod was 93 when he died April 4. His father, Gilbert McLeod, founded Mac's Supermarkets, which changed into Piggly Wigglys in the mid-1950s, and McLeod worked in the stores for 70 years, dating to 1954.
Mac's Supermarkets started with two small stores in Sumter. The McLeod family currently owns three Piggly Wigglys in Sumter and eight total. At one time, the family had 16 stores.
Simpson was 82 and died suddenly. Simpson's father, Carl Simpson Jr., founded Simpson Hardware Co. in 1951 with the purchase of stores in Camden, Hartsville and later Sumter. Simpson opened a second location at Palmetto Plaza in Sumter in 1963. Currently, Simpson Hardware has five locations: three in Sumter, one in Manning and one in Lake City.
Kevin Howell, director of the Crisis Relief Ministry for SUM, said, "The Fireside Fund specifically allows Sumter United Ministries to provide another layer of support and help to Sumter area residents that need it most. Prior to receiving the donations from the Fireside Fund, all heating assistance came from the same fund as all other assistance, meaning clients had to choose between getting help with rent or electric and heating requests. Now, clients that were assisted in previous months with other needs are still eligible to ask for help with heating needs.
"The assistance we offer is diverse. We interview people with Dominion Energy accounts (natural gas), propane invoices, kerosene and sometimes electric heaters for those in need of a replacement heating source.
"The darkness and cold of winter have an impact on clients that are struggling financially and facing a personal crisis or other challenges. To know that we can offer assistance with heating even when we cannot offer other types of help is an encouragement to so many. In general, there is much anxiety in our community about the future, the economy and more. Providing heating assistance in a time of need reminds our neighbors in need that, no matter the circumstances, there are always people who care.
"Thank you for caring and sharing to make The Fireside Fund possible."