Dear Downtown Elizabeth City Supporter: 

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If you’ve been paying attention to Downtown Elizabeth City over the last few years, you’ll notice that there has been significant private and public investment, revitalization, and growth.  

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Elizabeth City Downtown now has a thriving (and still growing) central business district with: 

• 26 Dining & sipping spots including pubs, cafes, breweries, wine bars, speakeasies, and coffee shops.  

• 27 Shopping opportunities. 

• 23 Health, Beauty, and Wellness businesses. 

• 16 Art, Experience, and Kids’ Activities.  

• 377 residential units in downtown (an increase of 151 since 2019)

• 20 Pieces of Public Art

• 34 Public Art/Bike Racks

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Balanced with the rise in residential living spaces; the professional, legal, municipal government, courthouse district; and the beautiful asset of our waterfront, Downtown is poised to grow even more in the coming years.  All this provides for a stronger community as well as a stronger tax base. 

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The number of events and activities throughout downtown has also increased dramatically. There’s so much to do now in Downtown and across the City, you can stay busy every day if you wanted to! 

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Elizabeth City Downtown, Inc. (ECDI) as an organization tirelessly focuses on its mission to be a “catalyst of revitalization, acting as a central resource for potential investors, visitors, and residents interested in our historic and waterfront downtown.”  We’re partners in the growing pride and efforts to make our downtown and City a better place to live, work, and visit. 

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ECDI is a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization, with 70% of our budget coming from fundraising, sponsorships, donations, and special projects. Thirty-seven percent (37%) of our total budget comes from our largest fundraising event – the annual North Carolina Potato Festival.  

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Not only is the NC Potato Festival our largest fundraising event, it is Elizabeth City’s largest three-day festival honoring one of our area’s largest crops – the potato. The festival is FREE to the public of all ages and has a midway with spudtacular rides and games, a street fair with artisans and food, live music, potato-oriented activities, an auto show, a farm show, free French fries, cornhole tournament and bushels of FUN for the whole family!

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We need your help as a sponsor to help make this event happen again for our community in 2025 – May 16-18, 2025!  

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Below are some economic insights/marketing data provided by Placer.ai for the 2022 NC Potato Festival, which shows that a sponsorship is a great use of your advertising/marketing dollars. It’s also a great way, as a business or organization, to help ensure this community-wide event continues to happen. We hope you will support the 2024 NC Potato Festival with a sponsorship or donation. Your investment in the NC Potato Festival is an investment in Downtown Elizabeth City. 

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• Festival visits total almost 51,000, with 40,800 being unique visitors. 

• Average dwell time for each visit was 2 hours.

• Daily visits on Friday were approximately 12,400; Saturday 26,600; Sunday 12,000.

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There are numerous ways to sponsor the event as shown on the enclosed Sponsorship Form.  Feel free to call Debbie Malenfant, our Executive Director, at 252-338-4104 or email director@elizabethcitydowntown.com or ncpotatofestival@gmail.com

 

Thank you,

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Tim Williams,                                                                          Deborah Malenfant,

NC Potato Festival Chair                                                  ECDI Executive Director