By now, many of you already know me and my annual ask for financial support to advance my cause and purpose in tiny towns across Southwestern Georgia for Black History Month. My name is Rahn d. Fudge of San Francisco by way of small town Georgia (Bainbridge) where I grew up and where for the past 23 years I’ve returned to give back to my childhood home, uplift, inspire, and empower those in and around the surrounding area. An area steeped and storied in local black history that’s either been long forgotten or purposely ignored over time. My end goal—or perhaps my calling—is to change that. In the past 23 years, significant strides have been made. For example, we’ve been able to raise the level of awareness about the importance of preserving local black history so much so that city officials, leaders, and community activists have started to take serious notice. When Juneteenth was declared a federal holiday back in 2021 it was the small grassroots organization I created decades ago in my childhood home that developed the city’s first-ever local Juneteenth celebration and kept it going for four years. Now, the city, following our lead and inspired by our efforts, has created an annual official city-sponsored local Juneteenth event that just started last year. Most recently, last month during the Christmas holiday, my grassroots group held the city’s first-ever public candlelight ceremony introducing Kwanzaa to the community which made front page news and is on course to become an annual local holiday event. Each year, during the last week of February, my organization (Phoenix Affaire Group©️) stages a full week of local Black History Month (BHM) events across six “tiny towns” throughout Southwest Georgia (called the Phoenix Affaire©️ RISE! Week©️) with pertinent events such as a one-day mini BHM movie fest, a black community town hall meeting, a travelin’ wreath-laying ceremony to honor the unsung contributions of African-American war veterans, a BHM community fashion show and last—but not least—a closing “Gospel in the Park Sunday” event to highlight the week. And, this year we will make a second attempt to launch and pilot a first-ever local black history tour of Bainbridge. Of course, all of these visionary ideas are not able to come to fruition without funding support. This is where we need your generous contributions and sponsorship to be able to do everything from reserving and expensing rental venues to buying food for food-related events so we can continue offering most of the local BHM events free to the public. Another important end goal is to try and install local historic markers throughout the city and county to include a Civil Rights Trail historic marker along a Georgia state highway near Attapulgus, Georgia (a bedroom city of Bainbridge) where famous Civil Rights Movement field lieutenant and inner circle entourage member to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. , Hosea Williams. was born. Any amount of financial support helps to get us that much closer to satisfying our present, future, and end goals. Thank you in advance.