Grace Ann Nordhoff, owner of the Mad Hatter's Café and Bake Shop in Durham and a Duke alumna, has given $200,000 to help endow the Duke-Durham Neighborhood Partnership, Duke President Richard H. Brodhead announced Monday.
Nordhoff, a 1982 Duke graduate, lived, studied and worked in Durham for more than 20 years before returning to her hometown of Seattle. She continues to manage the Mad Hatter's. In 2005, she joined the Neighborhood Partnership's Board of Advisors at Brodhead's invitation.
"Grace is one of many Duke students who came to Durham from someplace else, felt at home here and became an active participant in the life of our city, both as a student and after she graduated from Duke," Brodhead said. "That she continues to support Durham by running a business and helping to guide the Neighborhood Partnership, even after she has returned to her own native city 3,000 miles away, is evidence of both her good citizenship and her commitment to help the important work Duke and nearby neighborhoods are doing to make Durham a better place."
An avid home baker, Nordhoff co-founded the Mad Hatter's in 1994. Now located adjacent to Duke's East Campus, the eatery is a popular destination for members of the Duke and Durham communities.
"I support what the partnership has done to improve the vital relationship between Duke and Durham," Nordhoff said. "Since I graduated from Duke in the 1980s, Duke has expanded greatly. It could have been satisfied with its own growth, but instead decided to use its great resources to become a more integrated part of the Durham community.
"The Duke-Durham Neighborhood Partnership has improved both the university and Durham, helping build quality after-school programs for at-risk children, funding affordable housing initiatives, strengthening local nonprofits and encouraging more Duke students to volunteer in Durham. I hope my gift will help assure that the partnership is able to continue this kind of good work well into the future."
The Duke-Durham Neighborhood Partnership, a collaboration between Duke and 12 neighborhoods and eight public schools near Duke's campus, concentrates its efforts and investment in four thematic areas: education enrichment and youth development; neighborhood stabilization; strengthening community organizations; and engaging Duke students and staff in community service. Since 1994, for example, Duke has provided $4 million in affordable housing loans to Self-Help, leading to more than 130 houses being purchased for renovation in Walltown and Southwest Central Durham. More than half have been sold to first-time low-income homeowners.
In addition, Duke's Division of Community and Family Medicine, in conjunction with Lincoln Community Health Center, has opened health clinics in those partnership neighborhoods, providing affordable, accessible health care to more than 8,000 Durham residents. Duke also provides neighborhood schools with curriculum support, tutors and improvements to their campuses, and supports quality after-school programs for low-income children at four neighborhood centers.
In 2006, an effort was begun to build a permanent endowment to support the future work of the partnership. Nordhoff's gift is the third major endowment gift that the partnership has received in the past year.
Last fall, partnership board chair Kevin Kenny, a 1989 graduate and New York-based hedge fund manager who was active in community issues while a student at Duke, contributed $200,000 for endowment. And Robert King Steel, a 1973 graduate and the first Durham native to chair the Duke University Board of Trustees, gave $500,000, half for immediate needs and half for endowment. An endowment gift becomes a permanent source of funding. The assets are invested, and each year a portion of the earnings is spent while the rest remains invested to help the endowment grow.
Since the partnership was created in 1996, Duke has raised more than $12 million for its programs, including local nonprofit organizations, churches, schools and communities. Hundreds of university students, faculty and staff regularly contribute time and effort to a wide range of projects serving the Durham community.