Fowlers’ gift completes Mabee Challenge Grant
Camp Siloam recently announced that it received a capstone gift of $250,000 to the Feed My Sheep Campaign made by Wallace and Jama Fowler of Jonesboro, Ark.
The Fowlers’ gift completes the requirements of the Mabee Foundation Challenge Grant and secures the $250,000 grant awarded to the camp nearly a year ago for the construction of a new dining hall.
“I am so grateful to Wallace and Jama for their generosity,” said Jason Wilkie, executive director of Camp Siloam. “Their incredible gift secured the Mabee Foundation’s grant for Camp Siloam and has helped us meet our campaign goals. I sure didn’t want to lose the Mabee Foundation opportunity. I really wanted to secure the funds for everyone who had stretched and given sacrificially to get us close to our campaign goal. The Fowlers understood my desire and we couldn’t have done it without them.”
In January 2017, Camp Siloam was awarded a $250,000 challenge grant from the J.E. and L.E. Mabee Foundation. This grant was awarded to be put towards Camp Siloam’s project for a new dining hall. Camp Siloam had until Jan. 1, 2018 to meet the grant’s challenge.
The gift, which fulfilled the challenge from the Mabee Foundation’s grant, is a result of a friendship formed years ago. The Fowlers’ longtime friendship is something Wilkie said he highly treasures.
“I met Wallace in my first week on the job as Jonesboro’s Parks and Recreation Director,” Wilkie said. “He was mowing the lawns of our new baseball and soccer complex; Joe Mack Campbell Park.”
Wilkie said he couldn’t believe a guy of Wallace’s standing was out mowing park lawns. He was impressed with Wallace’s interest in the community and parks, and asked if he could meet with him for coffee to talk about the city.
“After that, every six months or so, he and I would get together to talk about the city and its development,” Wilkie said. “I highly valued his wisdom and his thoughts on business. The things Wallace taught me about customer service are things we use today at the camp to serve our guests. To have a gift from Wallace and Jama is a real honor for me.”
The Fowlers have been successful business developers for many years. As the owners of Fowler Foods, they operated as many as 83 Kentucky Fried Chicken stores in the 1980s and 1990s. The Fowlers were involved in banking in the late 1990s and early 2000s. Wallace served as CEO of Mercantile Bank in Jonesboro and most recently Liberty Bank. The Fowlers sold Liberty Bank to Centennial Bank in 2013. Wallace and Jama are known statewide for their generosity; giving to major projects such as the Fowler Center for Performing Arts at Arkansas State University and the Fowler House at the University Arkansas as well as their involvement in the community of Jonesboro.
The Mabee Foundation’s objective is to inspire giving in the final stages of a campaign. Had Camp Siloam been unable to meet the requirements of the challenge grant, the Mabee Foundation would have retracted the $250,000 grant award.
“The Mabee Foundation is structured so well to accomplish its objective of spurring on the last percentages of giving,” said Wilkie. “It was nervewracking this fall to think about not meeting their challenge, but by God’s grace and the generosity of some very special people, God did it.”
It has been two years since Camp Siloam launched the Feed My Sheep Campaign for a new dining hall. After a decision made by the Camp Siloam Board of Trustees, stepping out in faith, the ground was broken in August to begin construction on the new dining hall. The estimated date of completion for the new facility is April 15, 2018. The Feed My Sheep campaign will continue until June 1 to ensure that all the gifts have been made to the dining hall.
The excitement continues to grow as Camp Siloam watches the daily progress of their new facility being built, with the assurance that the building’s campaign requirements have been completed.
The campaign would not have been possible without the generosity of 62 churches who have participated in the envelope campaign or given gifts, the more than 900 individuals who have made one-time gifts, as well as several individuals who have made pledges to give over the course of the next year or several years.
“For the rest of my career I will remember the generosity of the Fowlers and so many people who made the Feed My Sheep campaign a success and secured the future of Camp Siloam,” said Wilkie. “It is amazing to think how far the camp has come in only two and a half years.”