I read about Love Greensboro in the News & Record this morning and minutes after commenting there I get an e-mail:
"Billy, I was going to e-mail you about this the other day. A friend of mine started a "Buy Local Love Greensboro" (www.facebook.com/BuyLocalLoveGreensboro)campaign like 8 months ago. Just a woman who loves the community and is trying to do something positive. She is not a business owner. She has paid for posters and everything out of her own pocket.
So anyway, here's the scoop as I've heard from 2 different people.
Lee Comer started this because she had it out with Triad Local First. IMO, that group is a joke. I went to some of their meetings. The leaders are just plain rude unless you are a friend of theirs. They hired an Executive Director within the past 6 months. She left recently; she didn't like the way the Board wanted things done. Basically running a non-profit as a for-profit enterprise. At least to my knowledge, TLF doesn't ask for hand-outs; the business owner members support the group through their annual membership fee (starts at $150 I believe).
Okay, on to my friend and the "BLLG" Facebook page. Lee was begging her to take down her page at the meeting last week. She believes that they will not get additional funding if "BLLG" keeps active.
My friend said that Bryan & Weaver (the funding organizations) are forcing Lee to make up with Triad Local First "in the name of funding." WTF???
My friend said they "stole" this idea from Asheville, which runs their program with all volunteers and no funding for the Love Asheville campaign. Not sure how true that is, but I know my friend met with or spoke to some people in Asheville.
Perhaps Lee started "Love Greensboro" to pay for the renovations/expansion of the Iron Hen???? I'm sorry, but when a business owner starts an initiative like this, there has to be something in it for them. In this case, money and publicity for her business. As a catering business, I'm sure she'll benefit from the publicity, provide the catering for organization functions, etc."
Anything to it? Are Greensboro foundations paying for "grassroots" efforts that Asheville gets for free? Did my predictions come true again?
