National Philanthropy Day is coming up Nov. 15 and the Coweta Community Foundation, whose goal is to enhance Coweta County’s quality of life by encouraging philanthropic interaction, is a great believer in community philanthropy. In fact, there’s a unique philanthropic story behind one of the trucks in the Newnan-Coweta Historical Society’s public art installation, “Horses, Trains, and Pick-up Trucks — All Roads Lead to Newnan.” Earlier this year, the Foundation donated a truck that was hand painted by local artist Cecilia Hilton, owner of Fine Lines Art & Framing, a frame shop and art gallery in downtown Newnan.
The purchase of this truck was made possible by a grant from UBS Financial Services, Inc. Ginger Jackson Queener, chair of the Foundation, is a vice president of wealth management with UBS Financial Services, and last November she received their UBS Global Employee Volunteer Award, with the monetary award to be donated to the nonprofit of her choice.
Queener is a member of the Rotary Club of Coweta-Fayette, and as club president for 2013-2014, she presided over $37,000 of organization-led investments in the community and abroad through more than 50 service projects. The initiatives she helped lead included putting iPads in a rural school to place technology in the hands of children; partnering with Backpack Buddies to provide food for children who are homeless or nutritionally under-resourced; and connecting her personal optometrist with a domestic violence shelter so women there could receive free eye screenings and glasses. In another project she is passionate about, she helped host a symposium aimed at putting an end to human trafficking.
Queener said she learned of the UBS award for her volunteerism at almost the same time local volunteers were seeking donations of the horses, trains, and pick-up trucks for the historical society’s public art installation, which went on display in downtown Newnan in June. Since her award was supposed to be donated to a nonprofit with an educational component, the money was given to the Foundation for the truck, and proceeds from the art exhibit will benefit the future Newnan Children’s Museum. Each of the pieces will be on display around the Court Square for three to six months.
But the Foundation’s gift won’t exactly end when the truck concludes its run in downtown Newnan, since Queener said the truck will then be auctioned off. In a move quite fitting for a donation that begins and ends with philanthropy and volunteering, truck proceeds will then be donated to the Coweta Community Foundation.
“Go out and find our truck along with 28 other pieces around town,” Queener said. “They are absolutely beautiful.”
For more information on the Coweta Community Foundation, visit cowetafoundation.org.
