Thanksgiving is behind us and Christmas and a brand-new year will be here before we know it. Many thanks to our chapter Treasurers that have gone above and beyond to get our donation and dues payments in by the deadline this week. Having served as a chapter treasurer I know the stress of the last few days as you get everything finalized with the state and national for reporting purposes. With a New Year in mind, and new goals and projects on the horizon for both the state and national societies, I wanted to update our members and chapters on a state change that will be implemented in 2021 regarding Tamassee DAR School, in Tamassee South Carolina.
2020 has been a year of reflection for our state society regarding the role we are playing at all DAR Schools. We were so glad as a board to have had the opportunity to visit Tamassee DAR School in March for Tamassee Fine Dining right before the Covid-19 lockdowns began, and we took that time on campus to begin to determine what might be right for our state society. With dwindling residential numbers we were considering the viability of the dining event even then while on campus. As you know, just a few days later in mid-March Tamassee announced that they would no longer be a residential facility and would phase out that program by the end of the year. The focus would be on their preschool program and a new afterschool program for children in the community. With the announcement that residential students would no longer be a part of the programing, it became clear that Tamassee Fine Dining as hosted by the Tennessee Society could no longer continue, and we removed this line item from the optional contributions that chapters could donate from our reporting for the upcoming 2021 year.
We then began to consider our role as a state at the Smith Mettetal Building, knowing that increasing costs for upkeep would prevent us from being able to contribute in full or in part for many of the larger projects on the forecast for the building, like HVAC units, roofing and foundation issues. While the building was built in the 1970s as a NSDAR project, our name was not added to the school until the 1990s when the state sponsored painting the building. Tennessee does not own Smith Mettetal, but there is a fund for this building that each TN state regent has the ability to direct undesignated funds contributed to the school to cover projects, etc. Currently we share sponsorship of this building with Iowa, with them sponsoring the top floor/back entrance, and us sponsoring the lower floor/front entrance. The lower floor held a recreational space that residential students used for weekend activities, and it also provides the location for the US Post Office that is on campus. Full ownership of the campus buildings is held by the school, and they are free to sell or rent the buildings as they see fit to outside parties, like renting office space to the USPS. We were thrilled to learn this summer that both the lower and upper level bathroom renovations would be covered by the National Society as these were problem areas that had plagued the facility for many years and that the Tennessee Society had not had funding to cover the lower renovation.
In October 2020 the NSDAR National Board of Management voted to no longer include Tamassee DAR School among the recognized schools that fall under the DAR Schools Committee, for projects and donations. At that time it was determined by the National Society that chapters and states that chose to continue to support Tamassee could do so under the Community Classroom Committee umbrella. With this National ruling we had to take a hard look at what would be on the horizon for projected building issues and concerns at the Smith Mettetal Building and what that would mean for projects for future state regents. We invited Jon Holland, CEO and SC State Regent and Tamassee Board Member Libby Billham to attend a work session with the full TSDAR Board of Directors and invited our Honorary State Regents to attend as well. This discussion allowed the school to share their ideas for the future while giving us the opportunity to ask questions.
Based on that presentation and ensuing discussion, the TSDAR Board of Directors has determined that we will no longer be continuing our sponsorship of the Tennessee Smith Mettetal Building effective December 31, 2020 and will be releasing any state society control over the undesignated fund balance held for the building to Tamassee to distribute as needed for the building until it is depleted. With this decision I will be stepping off the Tamassee DAR Regent’s Council effective December 31, 2020 as well.
During our board discussion we considered our own state and the children we serve in our own communities. Unfortunately, Tennessee has many pockets of rural and urban poverty with children that are facing many of the same hardships as the children in this particular region of South Carolina. With the change of focus and direction of Tamassee during this time of great challenge from Covid-19, we feel that we must reevaluate our role as a state society and seek opportunities within the Community Classroom, Literacy or Service to America Committees for our own schools and afterschool programs here in Tennessee, like Operation Personal Care, Little Libraries, or volunteer opportunities with students from our own hometowns. Tennessee chapters may continue to sponsor projects at Tamassee under the Community Classroom Committee umbrella of projects, but please be aware that the state society will no longer have oversight with directed donations given to the Smith Mettetal Building Fund. We encourage our Tennessee Chapters to examine all their committee programming to determine the right projects for your members and their interests.
We will be presenting a DAR Schools program later this month via Zoom on Dec. 14 at 8pm Eastern/7pm Central with opportunity for questions and you may register here. As always if you have any issues or concerns before our program please do not hesitate to reach out.
In Service,
Cecile
