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Endowment invests $6.8 million in Northside Food Co-op; new leadership search in very early planning phase

The Northside Food Cooperative located on the Northside of Downtown Wilmington
The Northside Food Cooperative located on the Northside of Downtown Wilmington

The funding, announced Wednesday, will go to the construction of a grocery store in what has long been a food desert — and help the Northside Food Co-op with operating revenue after its opening, planned for early 2026. The New Hanover Community Endowment, meanwhile, is still working on a plan for how to search for a new leader following the abrupt resignation of William Buster earlier this month.

The Northside Food Coop was founded in 2020 to address the lack of available fresh food in Wilmington’s northside — an issue that’s persisted since the A&P grocery closed decades ago.

Historically, there have been several broken promises of a new grocery store, but over the last few years support from the City of Wilmington and New Hanover County have helped move the project forward.

Endowment Chairman Bill Cameron said he understood how important it was to address the food desert.

“Way before I was ever involved with the Endowment, I've heard about food deserts on the north side of town. I mean, that's just kind of been talked about for decades. And so the Endowment, having the opportunity to address that need, which I think has been a huge need for a long time, it's kind of exciting. And to be a part of seeing it come to fruition is really rewarding," Cameron said.

The Endowment’s roughly $6.8 million will be dispersed over three years; it will fund the construction of a grocery store in 2025, with a grand opening planned for early 2026. The funding will also help supplement the co-op’s operating revenue as it finds its footing after opening, Cameron said. County commissioners have approved $2.45 million for construction and in mid-March, they're expected to consider a memorandum of understanding the provided backtop operating revenue, "subject to certain limitations," according to a county spokesperson.

According to the Endowment, the funding was requested during the 2023 grant round — but the Endowment's leadership felt they needed "additional engagement and learning before making the investment."

Cameron said some of that had to do with working out the details of how funding would work for construction and operation, in concert with support from New Hanover County. He agreed it was a good example of why the Endowment is transitioning from an annual grant cycle to a rolling application model.

"I think after the experience of two years, I think we really need to revamp our application process. And I don't think I'm speaking out of school by that. We had — golly, how many hundreds of applications — and $300 million of asks you're trying to get them processed and we just said, you know, there's got to be a better way," Cameron said.

When it opens on 10th and Post streets, the Northside Food Co-op will be a "small-format, full-line store, selling primarily conventional groceries (think name brands that customers are familiar with), with an emphasis on fresh departments like produce, meat and seafood," according to the Endowment.

'Change in leadership'

Wednesday's announcement is the first public communication from the Endowment since the abrupt resignation of CEO William Buster on February 5.

Cameron said the Endowment is in the early days of looking for new leadership.

“We're in the process of determining the process," Cameron said.

Asked to elaborate, Cameron said the Endowment is first looking at tweaking its leadership criteria.

"We have we've met several times talking about what would be our process. And I think where we are is, we are reviewing the qualities and characteristics we think we would like to have in a CEO [...] and say what needs to be tweaked because the Endowment is in a different place than it was two years ago, or two and a half years ago," Cameron said. "You know, back then we didn't have any staff. We didn't have any offices. We didn't we didn't have anything. And now we do we have offices, we have staff, we have a history of grants that have been made."

Cameron said that while the Endowment board had some "red lines" or "ideas" about what changes would be made, it would be premature to discuss them since they're not finalized.

He also said the Endowment aims to eventually hire a third-party consultant to help with the search, but said they have not approached any specific firm as of yet.

It's worth noting that while the Endowment's press release announcing Buster's resignation included some pro-forma mutual well-wishing, it's increasingly clear just how abrupt his exit was.

Cameron confirmed that the "process of determining the process" only began after Buster left. WHQR asked why, if Buster had left on good terms, there hadn't been a cooperative effort to create a succession process prior to his formal departure from the Endowment. Cameron said only, "before he resigned there wasn't any need for a process."

"The trains are running"

Buster's exit left some unanswered questions, including who is in charge — a question posed by New Hanover Commissioner Rob Zapple earlier this week.

Cameron confirmed that no interim CEO or president has been named, but that Lakesha McDay, executive president, is running day-to-day operations.

"She's the natural person to say, we need to keep the trains running. We need we need to keep them on the tracks. We need to keep our staff busy and out there working with the nonprofits and other organizations to try to find the good places for the Endowment to make investments in the community. And so it's natural to reach out and ask her to do that," Cameron said.

To that end, Cameron also confirmed that meetings with non-profits in the housing sector were continuing despite Buster's absence.

"Staff have had a boatload of meetings with different housing constituents, trying to put together a comprehensive way for us to be involved. I think we had — I'm gonna be close to being right — five or six different grant applications that dealt with housing in some form or fashion," Cameron said.

The work of developing a "coordinated plan" continues, Cameron said, although he couldn't confirm if it would be in the first half of the 2024 calendar year.

Another question is whether a new leader would pick up on some of Buster's initiatives — like the 'Breakfast with Buster,' a series of Chatham House rules meetings with stakeholders to work through tough issues, and a proposed program (referred to by some as nonprofit 101 or Endowment 101), that would help newer and smaller nonprofits better make their case to the Endowment for grant funding.

"That's an interesting question. My sense is we need a CEO that understands the mission-vision values of the endowment, and we'll advance them forward. And I think different CEOs may do that in slightly different ways. So our hope that the new CEO will have their own ideas of the best ways to do things that may or may not be the same as what we did in 2023. And that it is our job to hire the right person, and then give them the freedom to do their thing," Cameron said.

Cameron said he wanted to confirm for the public that the Endowment was still working while it undergoes a leadership search.

"The way I see it is the doors are open, we're open for business, the trains are running," he said.

[Disclosure notice: Rob Zapple is a member of the WHQR Board of Directors, which has no role in editorial decisions.]

Ben Schachtman is a journalist and editor with a focus on local government accountability. He began reporting for Port City Daily in the Wilmington area in 2016 and took over as managing editor there in 2018. He’s a graduate of Rutgers College and later received his MA from NYU and his PhD from SUNY-Stony Brook, both in English Literature. He loves spending time with his wife and playing rock'n'roll very loudly. You can reach him at BSchachtman@whqr.org and find him on Twitter @Ben_Schachtman.