Community Profile
Retired Executive Starts a Second Career
Helping Davie's Kids Overcome Obstacles
Allen
Mebane doesn’t need a lawnmower because he doesn’t let much grass
grow under his feet. Anything under his feet, in fact, is likely to
get stepped on.
Mebane is a retired no-nonsense business executive, but he’s
anything but retiring.
When he left the chief executive’s chair of the internationally
known textile company that he founded, he started another career that
might be even more profitable. Profit in this new venture, however,
will be pleasure rather than paper money.
Mebane, 72 and a former NCCBI director, founded Unifi Inc. in
Greensboro in 1971 after spending 20 years working for other textile
owners. Unifi has been enormously successful and is today the
world’s largest producer and processor of textured yarn. The company
became international in 1984 when it opened a plant in Letterkenny,
Ireland, and now has plants in England and Brazil as well as the
United States and Ireland.
Mebane years ago developed an affection for the tranquility and beauty
of Davie County when he purchased a farm for what he then thought
would be leisurely retirement. Long before he officially retired from
Unifi two years ago, however, he moved to the farm and made it his
permanent home, commuting the 75 miles a day to his offices in
Guilford County or wherever in the world his business ventures took
him. The more he was away from Davie, the more he wanted to get back,
and give back.
Now that Mebane is totally out of textiles, he is into Davie big time.
His footprints are all around and are moving in more circles more
often. Davie officials call him manna from the Gods of economic
opportunity and education.
He is the driving force in the formation of a child care program on
the Davie Community College campus to be financed through his private
family foundation that he runs out of an office on downtown
Mocksville’s main street. The foundation has committed $150,000 a
year for three years to support the program for 60 preschool students
in the Helen C. Gantt Childhood Development Center.
“Allen is passionate for young people,” says Mebane’s friend
Steve Robertson, who also recently moved to Davie and is helping
promote the county. “Allen has spent his life so far making money
and now he wants to spend the remainder of his life giving it away to
help people.”
Mebane’s foundation will donate roughly $1.5 million to charitable
causes in Davie and neighboring counties each year. Most of the money
will be directed toward educational efforts similar to the one at the
community college.
“It is my intention that the majority of the grants (from the
foundation) will be spent on education,” Mebane explains,
“starting at age 3 and taking a child through college and even
advanced degrees. We want to start with children at an early age
because if they get as far as the third grade and can’t read or
understand what is being read, it’s almost too late. We want to help
students prepare themselves to be leaders and teachers who can help
others. We will have grading points so we will be able to measure
success.
“I just want to make sure that what we give is productive, to make
sure people gain from it. We want to spend our money wisely and to put
it where the greatest needs are. The purpose of our foundation is to
help see that every child has an opportunity to improve to the place
where they can live outside poverty.”
Mebane’s educational charity efforts are the first of its kind for
Davie County. He hopes it will be the first of many others.
“Giving to those who are less fortunate than you and to other good
causes is an adventure worth taking,” Mebane says of his efforts to
do good things for his community. “Once you start to participate in
philanthropy, it becomes a part of your life. It is addictive and it
gives you a great deal of pleasure.”
Mebane’s interest in educational endeavors in Davie is not a first
for him. When he managed a textile company in Alamance County in the
late 1960s, he had trouble finding workers who could read well enough
to perform their duties. To solve that problem, he started an adult
literacy class and paid workers minimum wages while they attended
instructional courses.
That program worked well. In Davie, he’s just starting with a much
younger group.
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