Kassie Rempel is the president and co-founder of AdvoCats, a newly formed non-profit organization that provides financial support for New Hanover High.
“This came about because we started with the need for power washing on the overpass. And the question was asked, ‘Why would we need to fundraise for something so obviously needed?’ and it grew from there,” Rempel said. That overpass is the hallway suspended over Market Street in downtown Wilmington.
Last year, the AdvoCats supported projects like painting and adding mirrors to bathrooms. They also sponsor teacher appreciation events.
Allison McWhorter is the other AdvoCat co-founder. She said she sees disparities between the fundraising arms of other district high schools.
“Hoggard has a beautiful jumbotron for which they raised their own money, and they have great donors who do that. They also can sell concessions and make a ton of money that way,” she said.

New Hanover doesn’t have its own football stadium, so the team travels to Legion Stadium to play. When the school provides volunteers, they only get about 30% of the proceeds from concessions since it’s not their facility.
Another sports hurdle for the school was the disruption of the New Hanover basketball and volleyball teams' seasons in 2021 when the floor at Brogden Hall was caving in. The county had to fix the emergent issue, which cost $3.1 million, and Brogden reopened in late 2022.
Semaje Moore graduated from New Hanover two years ago — and played four sports there. He now plays football at Randolph-Macon College. He said he enjoyed his time with the players and coaches and had a great experience, and said they didn’t use the limitations of the facilities as an excuse.
“So we just kind of sucked it up and was like, ‘Okay, we have a big goal here. We want to win games, we want to get better, and all that stuff.’ So we couldn't do anything about it; we just had to put it in the back of our minds and forget about it,” Moore said.
The schools aren’t getting any additional county capital funding next year but will have a budget of $3.9 million from rollover and education lottery funds. While Brogden Hall has been improved, and the district plans to install a security vestibule this summer, alums like Moore still feel like the school has been put on the back burner.
“When we have away games to go into Hoggard or Laney and just seeing their facilities, locker rooms, fields, and everything in general, like everything just compared to ours at New Hanover, it was just better. It felt like, I don't know how to explain the feeling, but it just kind of felt like they didn't really care about how our facilities looked because it's been so long since they've been updated or anything,” Moore said.

Cade McWhorter, who plays football at New Hanover, is the son of Allison McWhorter. He’ll be a senior next school year — and said he wants to upgrade the track facilities at 13th and Ann Streets.
“I definitely want to see a new track field because ours is only half the size, and all the other high schools in the area have full-size tracks,” he said.
McWhorter and Rempel said they expect the district and the county to fix the major building needs, but the AdvoCats' main focus next year will be thinking of ways to support the athletic and community facilities at 13th and Ann, which includes the track, the football practice field, and some storage for the baseball and lacrosse teams.
“Right now, we're meeting with all the coaches to get a buy-in on what would be ideal for this property. And so we can come together and have a collective plan presented to the schools; they need to approve whatever plan that is, and then we would like to fundraise for it,” Rempel said.
Rempel and McWhorter said they’re in it for the long haul, not just for the time their kids attend New Hanover. They say updating the facilities at 13th and Ann would improve the quality of life for the larger downtown Wilmington community — and for the district schools like the International School at Gregory and Williston Middle School that are close by the property.
While students and the AdvoCats maintain that sports facilities need major updates, other structural problems exist. Three classrooms closed this year because of issues with the main building’s foundation.
Eddie Anderson is the assistant superintendent for New Hanover Schools and has spent decades working in district operations. He said they have a contractor for the project who will repair and stabilize the foundation.
“We've done an evaluation of the rest of the building; this is by far the worst area, and it posed a safety concern,” Anderson said. “We'll install Micropiles along the front foundation to stabilize it. Then we'll remove the brick from that area and redo it,” he said.
Rempel said the current work being done at the school is, and has mainly been, bandaids, like the repairs to the main building.
“It's Pandora's Box, what's behind the walls? And so they try to stay as superficial as possible. And that's what's happened. Let's fix the problem. It's like if you have a health issue, and you're like, ‘Here's some aspirin; here’s some aspirin.’ What is the root cause of what's causing these symptoms?” she said.
Another capital need is funding for a culinary arts classroom, a project worth about $1.4 million.
“We have funded the design, and we're continuing the design portion up to bidding, and then we'll be requesting construction funds next year,” Anderson said.
New Hanover County School Board member and New Hanover High alum Stephanie Walker said the school needs to become a priority.
“It takes what is often called political will to really want to spend money. It's one of our original high schools, and it deserves some respect. There are a lot of alumni from New Hanover High School who love New Hanover, and I think if they knew how bad it still was, they would probably be upset, too,” she said.
Other school board members, such as Hugh McManus and Melissa Mason, have also been vocal about the problems at New Hanover.
For example, updating New Hanover’s cafeteria is a major priority. Walker said it hasn’t changed much since she was in school in the late 1980s.
“Their cafeteria is almost underground. It has a very low ceiling, but it's still the same. I'm very, very surprised by that,” she said.
Anderson said that New Hanover does need a new cafeteria and wants to build it on the south side of Market Street. He added, "We want to convert the space between this new cafeteria and the George West building into this nice open plaza.”
He also wants to establish campus boundaries better and more efficiently connect the two sides of the school (both sides of Market Street). There’s also the issue of the Memorial Classroom building beside Brogden Hall still only having window air conditioning units.
Anderson said he understands why the community is frustrated by seeing other district high schools get more. He mentioned that many of those improvements came from the $160 million school bond voters passed in 2014.
“I think most people are talking about brand new gyms at Hoggard, that cafeteria expansion at Hoggard, a gym at Laney, and a new media center. And I understand that completely,” he said. “But I would say that in 1997, it was the other way around. It was Laney and Hoggard and the other schools that were complaining because New Hanover got the biggest portion. Yeah, unfortunately, there's not enough money to do everything.”
Anderson estimated that New Hanover High needs around $90 million worth of work. The AdvoCats’ estimate is around $106 million. However, to provide more detail, Anderson hopes to create a master plan, something that hasn’t been done since 1999. That planning would run around $300,000, but funds haven’t been allocated yet.
“This is an opportunity to get that developed scope of work, have some floor plans and renderings, and accurate cost estimations, prioritizations, and timelines so that if we get funding for all or part of it, we can hit the ground running," Anderson said.
The biggest question remains whether a new school bond will be put on the county ballot to raise the funds needed for New Hanover High.
For Anderson, it’s not necessarily in his wheelhouse to find out where to procure all this funding, but he said it’s about investing in the district’s future.
“It's not going to get any cheaper. The sooner we can do it, the better. It will be more cost-efficient, construction costs will be lower, and we will be less reactive,” he said.
New Hanover County Commission Chair Bill Rivenbark told WHQR that they are working on solutions to fixing New Hanover High. Rivenbark said he wouldn’t support a tax increase but would support putting a school bond on the ballot in the future. He said he expects the district to initiate the bond plan.
The county has likely missed the window to have a bond on the ballot this election cycle, but it could appear in the coming ones.
The district is also embarking on a master plan for all its facilities in 2025, which will cost about half a million. The last time this was done, about five years ago, the plan called for a half billion dollars in needs.
NHHS cost estimates identified in Capital Needs Plan, February 2024
Culinary arts classroom | $1.4 million |
Structural Repairs Phase One - Main Building | $2 million |
Replace 14 Fan Coil Units (30 years old) in Brogden Hall | $1 million |
Resurface Tennis Courts (includes NHHS and Laney) | $910,000 |
Lighting and ceiling replacement in Brogden (Phase 2) | $390,000 |
New Concession Stand in Brogden to include water, sewer, and grease trap | $260,000 |