ERIE, Pa. (AP) — Mike Batchelor invited the heads of 46 charities into his downtown office for one-on-one meetings to personally deliver the news. Nearby, on a small table, sat a box of tissues.
And then he proceeded: A donor had given a staggering $100 million to the Erie Community Foundation, and all of the charities would receive a share.
That was when the tears began to flow — and the mystery began — in this struggling old industrial city of 102,000 on Lake Erie, where the donor is known only as “Anonymous Friend.”
…
Each of the charities will get about $1 million to $2 million. The recipients include a food bank, a women’s center, a group for the blind and three universities.
The city — and the entire county of 280,000 — could clearly use the money.
Erie was once a bustling iron and steel town, and later also made machinery, plastics, paper and furniture. But many factories eventually closed or moved overseas. The paper mill, which employed more than 2,000 people in the 1950s, shut down in 2002 after more than 100 years in business.
The city has a growing service industry and has tried to remake itself as a tourist destination with a new slots casino. But its poverty rate is about 19 percent, or twice the national average, median household income is $31,196, versus $48,451 nationally, and as of 2006, it had an estimated 400 homeless people.
Filed under: As advertised on Myspace, Erie
