Lancaster’s leading philanthropy changed its name Friday, separating itself from a years-old controversy that has become more intense in the current national debate over memorials linked to slavery.
Members of the board of trustees, employees and interns celebrate the new name of Lancaster’s leading philanthropic organization. “Arras” means diverse tapestry.
The J. Marion Sims Foundation will now be the Arras Foundation. Arras (AIR-us), a Middle English word meaning diverse tapestry, pays homage to the area’s textile-weaving roots, said foundation President Susan DeVenny.
The logo is a green thread shaped like an A.
“We wanted to make sure the name reflected the spirit of the community, the spirit of what we do every day and the importance of serving all the individuals in the area together,” DeVenny said.
Richard Band, a member of the Arras board, said the new name reflects the foundation’s mission.
“Your name makes a statement about who you are,” Band said. “Arras is a tapestry. It signifies different threads woven together to make a strong fabric. It conveys the idea of moving forward for the good of the whole.”
The J. Marion Sims Foundation was created in 1995 with $52 million in proceeds from the sale of Elliott White Springs Memorial Hospital to Tennessee-based hospital chain Community Health Services.
The foundation’s mission is to support programs that enhance residents’ health and wellness in Lancaster County and Fort Lawn and Great Falls, the communities served by the hospital.
The foundation has distributed $57 million in grants over the years, and its assets now total $71 million, making it the ninth-largest philanthropic organization in South Carolina.
Jodie Plyler, chair of the Arras trustees, said this is an exciting, challenging time for the nonprofit.
“The foundation no longer just hands out checks but has moved in a new direction with a deeper purpose,” she said Friday. “We want to be involved in solutions to improve overall health throughout the fabric of this community.”
2017 discussions
DeVenny said the Sims board started having conversations about changing the name in late 2017, after protesters in New York City demanded the removal of a statue of Sims from Central Park.
“To a person, every member of our staff said we need to take this to heart,” DeVenny recalled this week. “We need to embrace everyone in the community and engender deeper partnerships.”
Dr. James Marion Sims, born near Heath Springs in 1813, is known as the “Father of Modern Gynecology.” He developed breakthrough tools and procedures in his field. But his research included experimental surgeries on enslaved women without their consent, opening his legacy to questions and criticism from medical experts and historians for many years. The Central Park statue honoring him was removed in 2018.
DeVenny said the foundation was planning to announce the name change when the organization moves into its new headquarters on Main Street later this year. But that plan changed after the national upheaval that followed the May 25 killing of George Floyd by Minneapolis police, which has now spread to protests – some of them violent – against monuments and memorials connected to slavery.
Last month, the University of South Carolina Board of Trustees unanimously approved a resolution asking state lawmakers to allow them to take Sims’ name off a campus dormitory. There is also a petition calling for the removal of a Sims statue from the State House grounds in Columbia.
Downtown Lancaster’s Wall of Fame at Main and Dunlap streets has a mural featuring Sims and four other honored locals – President Andrew Jackson, Apollo astronaut Charlie Duke, black actress Nina Mae McKinney and textile magnate Elliott White Springs.
DeVenny, the foundation’s president and CEO since 2015, said the Sims name had become a distraction and source of confusion.
“Every time there is conversation around controversial historical figures, people would phone our office,” she said. “We found ourselves having to explain we had nothing to do with him.”
History lesson
The foundation got its name not from Sims, but from the hospital named for him. In 1995, the hospital’s board of directors picked the name for the new foundation.
According to “Lancaster County: A Pictorial History” by Louise Pettus and Martha Bishop, Marion Sims Memorial Hospital opened in 1940.
The nonprofit facility was built by the Commonwealth Fund, a private foundation that was building one rural hospital each year somewhere in the United States, using proceeds from investments in Standard Oil.
Lancaster was selected and contributed some of the money for the project, mostly from Elliott White Springs.
In 1970, Elliott White Springs Memorial Hospital was built in front of the Sims hospital. The old hospital was then converted into a 90-bed nursing home.
Community Health Services bought the hospital in 1995. The company sold the 225-bed facility to the Medical University of South Carolina in 2018. It is now called MUSC Health-Lancaster Medical Center.
“It’s not the Sims family money…. There was such confusion with that name,” DeVenny said. “And at a time when these conversations are louder, it becomes more prominent.”
Michael Marsicano, president of the Foundation for the Carolinas, said the public often assumes that a foundation named for a person has received an infusion of “philanthropic capital” from that person’s family. That, he noted, never happened with the Sims Foundation.
“The citizens of Lancaster created this vitally important foundation, and it has long needed a name reflecting the values of the community that gave it life,” Marsicano said. “Rebranding is never easy, but in this case absolutely necessary to embrace the full community. I applaud the board’s bold decision.”
Plyler agreed, saying the 2½-year process was exhausting at times.
“I’m very proud of our board for hanging in there to do this. It was not a snap decision and to a person, everyone was all in,” she said.
The foundation is almost finished renovating the old Springs Co. building on North Main, two blocks from its current headquarters on White Street. The new building will provide office space and a gathering place for the community.
DeVenny said current events overtook the plan to unveil the new name and the new location at the same time.
“The thought was to announce it when we move into the building, but we realized with everything going on in the world, it was our time to act,” she said.
“It’s not kneejerk, but a way to take bold action that might be helpful. We want to make sure the new name reflects what we are doing. The board did a nice job of thoughtfully and carefully thinking it through.”
The foundation board, she said, selected the Arras name in early 2019 following a 14-month rebranding process.
The new name is already drawing positive responses from local leaders, who think the tapestry theme fits well with our region’s history and the foundation’s unifying mission.
“I am so pleased,” said Dr. Walt Collins, dean of USC Lancaster. “The new name – the Arras Foundation – captures the rich resource the foundation has been and will continue to be for our community, as it works to weave together a brighter future.”
Follow reporter Greg Summers on Twitter @GregSummersTLN or contact him at (803) 283-1156.
This article (archived) was first published in The Lancaster News.