A group of Port Gibson residents works on quilts at the Mississippi Cultural Crossroads in Port Gibson Friday afternoon. ( Meredith Spencer The Vicksburg Post)

[7/26/04]PORT GIBSON Mississippi Cultural Crossroads may be forced to close until October because funding from the City of Port Gibson has dried up.

The award-winning nonprofit arts, preservation and community enrichment organization is making a plea for citizens to donate $25 each $1 for each year it has existed.

James Miller, one of 12 members of the organization’s board, said he and other officials believed the city had appropriated $10,000 for this year. But the funds have not come.

“We were waiting and waiting for the money and it never came,” Miller said. “From my understanding (the money) was there, it was approved, the mayor just never cut the check.”

Mayor Amelda Arnold said the city did not appropriate the money and she declined to release city budget documents.

“It was not in the city’s budget last year and it will not be in the budget this year,” Arnold said.

“The city has other things to take care of,” Arnold said, mentioning the renovation of two downtown buildings as other claims on city finances.

In December, the city borrowed $200,000 to cover short-term operating expenses, a first for the city about 30 miles south of Vicksburg. That loan has been paid back, City Clerk Vanessa Waters said.

Arnold said Cultural Crossroads gets money from many sources and can afford to make up the loss of the city’s donation.

“If they depend upon $10,000 from the city to stay open, shame on them,” she said.

That is precisely the case, Miller said. The money from the city pays for a month’s operating costs for the nonprofit, which has an annual budget of $120,000.

Miller said money from the city and Claiborne County provides seed money for matching grants. Two-thirds of the nonprofit’s budget comes from those grants, he said.

The county government provides almost $13,000 a year to Cultural Crossroads and an additional $6,000 toward Peanut Butter and Jelly Theatre, a children’s theater troupe that is based at the nonprofit and travels throughout the state performing for school groups.

Miller fears funds will be too short to pay employees in August and the group’s first major statewide oral history conference, set for Sept. 17-19, may be canceled.

He said the conference will bring people to Port Gibson and exemplifies what the nonprofit wants to be a tourism engine for Claiborne County.

“We’re trying to create a tourism infrastructure. Cultural Crossroads is a critical piece,” Miller said, referring to Port Gibson’s location between Vicksburg and Natchez. “I don’t think some city officials realize that.”

Although the city is refusing to provide more money, City Hall has on display a photography exhibit sponsored and administered by Cultural Crossroads, Miller said.

“I hope they will see the error of their ways,” Miller said.